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#maybe it doesnt need a sequel

starberryes · 2 years

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don't you (forget about me) | steve harrington x reader

“Oh, great, she’s here,” Steve says, stepping away from the door. "First of all, Harrington," You scoff, glaring at that mop of hair with all the rage you can muster. "I have a name. Second of all, we are talking here—” Steve rolls his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, whatever—" "You did not just roll your eyes at me—” Dustin sighs. "Here they go." (or: You've always thought Steve Harrington was a weirdo. When you find out you might be in terrible danger, he might be just what you need.)

pairing: steve harrington x fem!henderson!reader (she/her pronouns used), lots of henderson siblings bonding <3

words: 13.9k

a/n: gif by @dailysteveharrington. thank you all for being patient and i hope you all like it<3 i loved this season and i love steve so i hope you enjoy this lil enemies to lovers fic. this fic is a one shot, but let me know if you'd like a sequel once vol 2 is out bc its a bit of an open, ambiguous ending ;) also some fun facts before this fic starts: dustin's dad appears at will's funeral in s1 and there are several theories about him-- officially, he and dustin's mother are divorced in canon. i'll explore that in this fic. ST4 SPOILERS. this is set in season 4 ep 3 "the monster and the superhero" and follows vol 1 canon also sorry if this doesnt follow canon pretty well i mostly did it from memory cause the wiki still isnt fully updated 💀

disclaimer: this fic discusses the topic of an absent parent, please proceed with caution if this is hurtful to you. also warning for canon typical violence and cursing. english is not my first language so please let me know if there are any mistakes.

📼 NOW PLAYING: Don't You (Forget About Me) by Simple Mind

Your mother had always been slightly overbearing and fearful, but the murder of Chrissy Cunnigham you think might actually kill her. Or at least will force her to lock you in your bedroom and flush the key down the toilet.

“You can’t go anywhere without telling me,” your mother tells you over breakfast, worriedly overcooking her bacon. “You hear me? I don’t want you running around town without me knowing. Or better yet, don’t go anywhere at all!”

You glare at Dustin’s chair, where your brother is munching on toast and eggs, hoping your mother takes the hint. She does, and so she shakes her head and says, “Dustin’s different.”

“You’re kidding me, right?”

“Maybe this killer has a thing for pretty girls,” your mother shakes her head, shivering. “Chrissy Cunningham was such a nice and pretty girl, right your age.”

“You don’t know what that killer was thinking!” You groan. “Why can Dustin leave but I can’t?!”

“Dustin’s not an eighteen year old girl with an easily breakable neck.”

“He’s easier to man-handle!”

Dustin frowns, finally looking up from his breakfast. “I’m not!”

”Besides, do you even know where he was last night?” You ignore your brother’s protests, choosing to point at him as he scoffs in offense. “I bet you don’t, because he’s always sneaking out!”

“I’m not always sneaking out!”

“I try my best with you, Dusty,” she sighs, finally sitting down. “But your sister is right, you’re difficult to keep track of. You’re always running around, like those little legs have minds of their own.” She points the spoon she was using for her coffee at your face. “Don’t you throw that in my face, (Y/N).”

“Mom, you’re right,” you nod, sipping your orange juice, trying to appeal to her soft spot. “He is difficult to keep track off, and there’s a dangerous killer on the loose. How about I keep track of him? Make sure he’s not getting into any trouble, hm? I’ll make sure we’re always safe, together.”

Of course, you were planning on bolting as soon as you were out of your mom’s sight. You mom’s cat Tews meows somewhere across the room, as if he knows not to trust you. That damned furball.

“What the fuck? No!”

“Dusty! Language.”

“Mom,” Dustin says, exasperated. “I don’t need a babysitter. Much less a babysitter that’s also my annoying older sister.”

“No, you have Steve Harrington for that,” you mutter under your breath, and Dustin manages to kick you under the table. You glare at your little brother, then turn to address your mom once again. “I promise we’ll stay together. I know— no, I understand that it’s scary out there right now, but I can take care of myself. And Dustin. You have to trust me.”

“I trust you. It’s the murderer I don’t trust.”

“Mom—”

“Let me finish,” she stares pointedly at you, and you promptly shut up. “I don’t want you two sneaking out. But, it’ll make me feel better if the both of you are together.”

Dustin covers his face with his hands. “Shit.”

“Yes!” You squeal. You stick out your tongue at him, and he rolls his eyes. “Guess you’re stuck with me, Dusty.”

“Screw you.”

“Dusty, it’ll be fun. (Y/N), don’t taunt your little brother,” your mom scolds both of you into silence. “It’ll be like old times, won’t it? Aw, you two used to be thick as thieves back then.”

Dustin sighs, picking at his toast absent-mindedly. “Was there a murderer on the loose back then too?”

📼📼📼📼📼📼📼📼📼

After breakfast, you give Dustin a ride until you arrive in a neighborhood that is most definitely not Lucas Sinclair’s like he told you it would be. You turn to stare at your brother before you unlock the car’s door, confused.

“Where are we?”

Dustin looks at your shoes. “I told you. Lucas’s.”

“Okay, you might lie to me whenever you want, just not to my actual face, Dustin.” You roll your eyes, and he mirrors you. “Seriously, why did you make me come all the way down here?”

“Why do you care?”

“I know we’re doing this to get mom off our backs, but there is actually a killer on the loose,” you say. “So, excuse me if I’m also a little wary about dropping you off at unknown locations, or whatever.”

“Fine,” Dustin sighs. “I’m here to see Max and Steve.”

“Steve?”

“Harrington.”

You blink at him. “Fucking Steve Harrington?”

“See?” Dustin rolls his eyes again. “This is why I didn’t tell you! You are extremely uncool about Steve, you know.”

“I’m not!” You try not to dwell about how defensive you sound even to yourself. “I’m extremely cool about him. I’m extremely cool about the fact you hang out with that douchebag with stupid hair.”

“He’s not a douchebag! I don’t get why you hate him so much.”

Because you remember him and his friends making fun of you all throughout High School, his sneering and stupid stares. Like your brother, you’d never fit in— you never liked going to parties or drinking and you never made an effort to be liked by him and his group of popular dorks, instead you spent most of your days in the library, reading, hiding from Steve and his friends. Whatever honorable things Dustin saw in Steve Harrington you think he might have imagined them.

Now, in your last year of High School and with Steve becoming a social pariah, you don’t have to hide the fact that you still dislike Steve as much as you did back when he was still King Steve. Steve, for however much Dustin insists that he’s changed, upon first meeting you had tried to sweet talk you as if he didn’t know who you were. And you had barely kept it together enough to tell him to fuck off. Ever since then, you and Steve Harrington had hated each other’s guts. Your mutual dislike of each other is not lost on Dustin, who continues to mostly ignore it and tiptoe around it as best as he can.

“He’s not not a douchebag,” You murmur. “Why is he hanging out with two fourteen year olds during spring break? Isn’t the barf bag, like, supposed to be in college, going to frat parties, having a life of his own?”

Dustin doesn’t appreciate the way you talk about him, clearly, but he still replies, albeit unhappily. “He’s helping me with something.”

“With what?”

Before Dustin can respond, someone knocks on Dustin’s window. You jump, surprised, but it’s just Steve and Dustin’s friend redhead Max, looking bored and impatient. You groan and reach over Dustin’s seat to roll the window down.

“Do you mind?” You say to Steve. “We’re talking.”

“Oh, great, she’s here,” Steve says, stepping away from the door.

"First of all, Harrington," You scoff, glaring at that mop of hair with all the rage you can muster. You ignore Dustin’s groan. "I have a name. Second of all, we are talking here—”

Steve rolls his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, whatever—"

"You did not just roll your eyes at me—”

Dustin sighs. "Here they go."

“I did not roll my eyes—”

“You absolutely did!”

“There was something in my eyes.”

“That something was lies!”

“Jesus fuck,” Steve finally throws his arms up in exasperation and turns to your brother, ignoring your insults. “You done talking to your lovely sister there, Henderson? We got a counselor to see.”

“What?” You frown at Dustin, irritation immediately melting into concern. “What’s he talking about?”

“Steve, shut your mouth,” Dustin glares at Steve, who shrugs and finally steps away from the car. “Nothing, (Y/N), seriously. See you later?”

“No.” You shake your head. “What does he mean a counselor? Are you seeing Ms Kelly?”

“Nothing’s wrong, I promise. It’s—” he looks like he’s scrambling to think of an excuse, then his eyes land on Max. Something flashes across her face and she speaks next.

“It’s for me.” she says, “Chrissy died in my neighborhood.”

“She’s kind of freaking out,” Dustin says, and when you finally turn to look at Max you realize how tense she is, her shoulders square, with her lips forming a straight line.

“Oh. That sucks. Hey, Max.”

“Hey,” she greets, awkwardly. It’s part of her charm, you think.

“See?” Dustin asks. “Can I go now?”

You nod, a little shaken up for some reason. Maybe Chrissy’s murder still made you feel slightly ill, and the mention of it made you feel even worse. You couldn’t imagine what Max might be going through. It didn’t help that they had found another body this morning, either.

“Ye— yeah. Sorry. I hope everything’s alright, Max.”

“Yeah,” she nods.

Dustin nods to the door. “Can you unlock the car, then?”

You wordlessly comply, and as your little brother steps out of your mom’s blue Ford Cortina, you talk to Max once again. “Ms Kelly is great help. I’m sure she’ll make you feel better. She really helped me this year, you know, she’s a great listener.”

“Yeah, I know,” Max says. “I’ve been thinking about seeing her for a while, a—actually. I’ve heard she’s well… you know… fine, or whatever.”

“Hey, there’s no shame in that,” you shrug. “Lots of people go to see Ms Kelly… Actually, now that you mention it, Fred Benson, the guy they found this morning, was seeing Ms Kelly too. And Chrissy Cunningham.”

Dustin pauses before closing the car door. “What do you mean?”

You blink, slightly confused as to why you’d even bring it up. “I’ve seen them in Ms Kelly’s office before. I’m not sure why I’m even mentioning it, sorry.”

“No, no, (Y/N), that’s…” Dustin says, then doesn’t finish. “You’ve been seeing Ms Kelly too?”

“Yeah,” you nod, a little ashamed. You think about telling Dustin about everything that’s been going on, the nightmares, the guilt— but then you glance at his friends looking expectantly at him and cower. So you don’t continue.

It’s Steve who breaks the silence. “Henderson, chop chop, let’s go.”

“I’ll see you at home?” Dustin says, a little softer.

“Yeah, yeah. I was gonna go to Dinah’s near Ave Park, but do you think you’ll need a ride later?”

“Steve’s got his car,” he says. “Don’t wait up, okay?”

You nod, watching him leave.

📼📼📼📼📼📼📼📼📼

It’s around eight PM, and Dinah is painting her toenails as you skim through one of her books, the soft hum of the TV in the background, entering through the open bedroom door. Her parents are watching the news, the news anchors are urging people to stay home and to lock their doors to be safe of this new serial killer.

Dinah’s house is your usual hangout spot beside your own. You don’t have many other friends, and there’s only so many times you can force Dustin to watch The Breakfast Club before he’s fighting you for the remote.

“It was all Matty could talk about,” Dinah continues to rant. “I can’t stand this murder talk any longer! I can only hear about Chrissy Cunningham’s missing eyeballs so many times, (Y/N), it’s way too fucking gruesome, but it’s all everyone in this town seems to care about.”

“It’s a pretty pressing issue,” when Dinah glares, you shrug. “I’m just saying! You know I agree with you. I don’t want to hear about it anymore.”

“Chrissy was always so nice, wasn’t she?” Dinah shakes her head, putting her nail polish back in her nightstand, then wraps her arms around her legs, hugging herself. “And Fred had a future in front of him. It’s so unfair. They had a family that loved them.”

“Dinah, I really don’t wanna talk about it,” you say, feeling yourself shiver. You don’t want to think about poor Fred or Chrissy, or the families mourning them. You try to focus on the book in your hands, but the words start blurring together, becoming harder and harder to read.

You blink, confused, then realize Dinah is still talking.

“It’s the truth, isn’t it? I think about their dads too. Chrissy’s dad was crying so much at her wake. Do you think your dad would ever cry for you like that?”

You finally snap to look back at your friend. She’s staring at you like you’re small, like an insect she could stomp on. You’ve never seen her black eyes seem so soulless, so empty.

“Maybe they’ll be tears of joy, don’t you think? After all, weren’t you the one who made him walk away?” She tilts her head to the side, a sneer forming in her lips. “They could be a family without you.”

There’s something wrong in Dinah’s eyes. There’s something wrong about all of this, but you can’t point to what, where are you, when, why…what…?

When you blink, Dinah’s eyes look normal again.

“(Y/N),” She asks, frowning. “Are you there?”

You shake your head. What the fuck was all that?

“What?”

“You were staring at me like you weren’t all here,” she explains, grimacing. “Where did you go just now?”

“Sorry…” When you speak you feel a dull ache around your temple, and you lift a hand to rest against it, trying to soothe the pain aimlessly. “I think I need some painkillers or something, my head’s killing me.”

“Again?”

“Yeah,” even before spring break you had confided in your friend about the headaches and the nightmares— you never told her why, but she at least knew you were seeing Ms Kelly.

Dinah stands up, careful not to stain the carpet with her fresh black nail polish. “I’ll ask my dad for some Tylenol. Stay here, I’ll be back in a sec.”

Before Dinah is out the door she’s interrupted by the doorbell, which rings once, twice, three times and more. Dinah frowns, as her dad yells I’m coming, Jesus!

“Someone’s impatient…” you murmur, hand still resting on your temple.

“Hey,” Dinah, who has always had great hearing, says. “I think it’s your brother.”

You frown, and when Dinah’s father confirms it’s your brother by yelling out that It’s little Henderson!, you and Dinah head downstairs to find a heavy breathing Dustin, Max, Lucas and even Steve Harrington, looking as if they just ran a marathon.

Dustin’s eyes land on you. “(Y/N)!”

“Dustin?” you say, “What are you doing here? You need a ride ho—?”

Dustin runs to hug you by the waist, almost knocking the air out of you.

“Are you okay? Do you have a headache? Is your nose bleeding? Do you feel—?”

“Woah, Dustin,” you don’t know what to do with your hands— you and Dustin hadn’t hugged since he turned twelve and he and you both deemed it lame. “What’s going on? Did something happen?”

Dustin finally lets go of your waist to grab you by the face and inspect it properly. He roughly pulls your face down and tries to pull up your nose to look at your nostrils. “No nosebleed yet?”

Steve tries to stop him. “Dustin, buddy—”

Lucas adds a sustancial, “Dude.”

“Dustin!” you push his hands off your face, feeling your cheeks heat up when you notice everyone looking at you. “What the hell are you doing?”

Your brother opens his mouth to speak, but then seems to notice Dinah behind you and seems to think better of it. “We need to talk,” he says instead, “Like, right now.”

“Right now?” You ask. “I already told Dinah’s mom I’m staying for dinner. Dustin, what the hell is going on with you?”

Dinah clears her throat. “I’m… just gonna go get that Tylenol.”

“Tylenol?” Dustin asks when she walks away. “What for?”

“I have a headache.”

“Shit,” Max says, still by the door frame with Lucas and Steve.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Dustin curses, deep in thought. “It’s already started.”

“What?” You ask as Dustin starts pacing back and forth.

“We need to find out how to stop this right fucking now,” Dustin starts pacing back and forth. “Think, everyone.”

“Maybe Robin and Nancy found something in the library,” Steve offers.

“Yeah,” Lucas nods. “C’mon, man. Let’s go find them.”

“Okay, yeah. Okay, okay.” Dustin calms himself down, manages to stop his pacing. “Let’s go wait for them at the Wheeler’s. (Y/N), let’s go.”

You throw your hands up in disbelief. “Can someone tell me what the hell is going on?”

“(Y/N),” Dustin says, his voice unfaltering. Dustin is never serious about much, and this renders you speechless. “I need you to listen to me for once in your goddamn life, okay? We need to go. Now.”

“Okay, Jesus,” you say finally. “Dinah’s mom is making Lasagna so this better be worth it, Dustin.”

📼📼📼📼📼📼📼📼📼

On the way to Nancy Wheeler’s house, you learn two things: One, Dustin knows where a serial killer might be hiding, and two, your brother thinks you’re cursed and are going to die in, give or take, twenty four hours.

You glare at Steve Harrington in the rearview mirror. “What the fuck have you been giving him?”

“I’m serious!” Dustin yells. “I knew you wouldn’t fucking believe me.”

“I’m sorry,” you say, because he looks genuinely frustrated, but a second dimension and a supervillain? Does your brother think you’re stupid? Just how many movies has he been watching? “I just think D&D might actually be getting to your head, Dustin. There’s no way what you just told me is real.”

“Lucas and Max know it’s real too!”

Both of them nod furiously.

“Are the other two fourteen year olds your only source?”

“Steve too!”

Steve winks at you through the rearview mirror.

“Even worse,” you say.

“Listen,” Lucas tries to reason when Dustin groans in frustration, cursing under his breath at you. “I know this sounds absolutely crazy, I wouldn’t believe it either. But I promise you it’s all true, and if we don’t do something soon about it you’ll end up like Chrissy and Fred.”

An involuntary chill runs down your spine every time you think about them.

“Guys,” you say, slowly, “I know things are scary right now, but I’m sure there’s a logical explanation for the murders besides a demon supervillain.”

“I didn’t believe it at first either,” Max shakes her head. “Not until I saw it with my own eyes.”

“Didn’t Ms Kelly’s file say the others who were cursed were also having hallucinations?” Steve asks the kids, looking for a place to park. “So, have you gotten any weird visions lately?”

Hallucinations? You think back, but can’t seem to pinpoint anything similar to that. Except tonight at Dinah’s place, before Dustin and the rest had rung the doorbell. Suddenly you grow a little paler, uncomfortable at the memory being brought back. That had been weird, but you were exhausted and knowing a serial killer, Eddie Munson, who apparently your brother knew, was out there still was making you restless.

“I wouldn’t really call them visions,” you murmur.

“Shit,” Dustin breathes, looking at you with wide eyes. “It’s spreading faster.”

“Listen, Dustin, I may be going through some shit lately, but I promise you I’m okay. I just need some painkillers for my head, seriously.”

“(Y/N)!” Your brother takes you by the shoulders and shakes you. “Your life is in imminent danger! You don’t need painkillers!”

“I do if you keep shaking me like a ragdoll!”

“Listen,” Lucas says, grabbing Dustin and prying him off you despite his protests. “Just stay with us tonight, okay? We’ll sleep at the Wheeler’s and it’ll make Dustin feel better, right? We’re all tired.”

“Dude—”

Lucas cuts Dustin off and whispers, “We’ll wait for what Nancy and Robin have to say and then figure out how to convince her later, yeah?”

Dustin sighs. “This was so much easier when El had her powers.”

“So yeah? You’ll stay the night?” Lucas asks, hopeful.

You see all three of the kids staring at you and cave in. “Yeah, yeah. Okay.” You say, at the same time Steve parks right in front of the Wheeler residence. Before you can even step out of the car another car pulls over by the garage and Nancy Wheeler and another girl you don’t know step out of it.

“Nance, Robin!” Steve exclaims as he stops the car and steps out. “Had fun at the library? I sure didn’t.”

“It went well, I think—”

“We have a situation,” Dustin is quick to interrupt, reaching over your space and popping his head out from the open window. “It’s my sister. We think Vecna cursed her.”

“Whatever that means,” you mumble, getting out of the car, Dustin trailing behind you and slamming the door shut.

“She doesn’t believe us,” Max explains.

“Well, I personally would be more weirded out if she did,” The girl you don’t know shrugs a little. You recognize her now— she worked with Steve at Scoops Ahoy last summer before the fire at Starcourt, and now works at Family Video. You’ve spoken a bit with her before.

“She’s been having visions, headaches, nosebleeds,” Dustin continues, “like Fred and Chrissy were, according to Ms Kelly’s files. I think Vecna is preying on vulnerable people, people dealing with...” he looks at you for a second, then back at the girls, settling on saying: “Some shit.”

“We found some articles about Victor Creel at the library,” Nancy says, then motions at the house with her chin. “Let’s talk inside.”

📼📼📼📼📼📼📼📼📼

Nancy and Robin turn out to be as crazy as the rest of them— they tell the story of Victor Creel, infamous in Hawkins for murdering his entire family, and about how he was supposedly possesed by the devil according to some conspiracy newspaper. They want to talk to Victor, but the problem is that he’s now a patient at Pennhurst Mental Hospital and completely unreachable to the public. They plan to go first thing in the morning and the rest of the group seems to agree.

“We’ll need a disguise,” is Nancy’s big plan.

You never quite get that Tylenol, because the strongest thing Ms Wheeler has is green tea. You think everyone’s lost their goddamned minds.

“So what do you want me to do while all of you plan?” You ask, sitting on the couch. Nancy and Robin leave to Nancy’s room. Max and Lucas are by the desk in the corner speaking softly, Dustin is pacing around the room impatiently as he usually does when he’s this restless, while Steve is sitting on the couch beside you, playing with Dustin’s (or is it Mike’s?) walkie-talkie. “Am I allowed to eat something? Because I’m starving.”

Dustin snatches the walkie-talkie from Steve’s hand. “You’re gonna break that.”

Dustin’s, then.

“We don’t know yet,” Lucas says, walking over to where you are, holding Max’s hand gently. “We’re hoping the girls find out something from Victor. In the meantime…”

“You can eat,” Steve concludes. “... Right?”

“Right,” Max nods.

“We have to do something soon,” Dustin’s the most anxious you’ve ever seen him, even before you took him to see The Empire Strikes Back. “We don’t know how much time you even have once the visions and all the hallucinations start. We said twenty four hours but we can’t be sure.”

“If it helps, they started today. At Dinah’s.”

“You snapped out of it, right?” When you nod, Steve shrugs. “Henderson, I think we have time to order some pizza, at least.”

“And a movie?” You ask, finally relaxing into the couch. You toss away your shoes and hug them to your chest. “Does Mike have The Breakfast Club somewhere around here?”

“Not that movie again,” Dustin groans.

You throw a pillow at your brother, who manages to dodge it easily. “It’s a great movie!”

“It lost its charm after the thirteen time you forced me to watch it with you.”

“The Breakfast Club?” Steve asks aloud. “(Y/N) Henderson is obsessed with The Breakfast Club? Is that why Dustin is always renting it at Family Video?”

Dustin huffs, offended. “Why else would I want to rent that stupid movie?”

“Molly Ringwald,” Steve answers, at the same time you yell out, “It’s not stupid!”

When Nancy comes downstairs she informs you that sadly no, she doesn’t have The Breakfast Club, but that she should. She does have the soundtrack, however, and you think about asking to borrow it tomorrow before she goes back upstairs to order a pizza.

A while later it’s almost midnight, everyone around you is tired, except maybe for Dustin, but the majority wins and you all decide getting some sleep is the best option. You agree, but know that you’re probably not getting any sleep tonight, either; you’ve been having nightmares every night for the past few days and you don’t believe today is going to be any different.

When the lights go off and everyone is already starting to doze off, Dustin is quick to turn his flashlight on.

“Dude! Turn that off!” Steve moans, launching a pillow straight into his face. Dustin doesn’t dodge this one this time, much to Robin and Steve’s satisfaction, who chuckle lightly.

“C’mon, Dustin, what the hell?” Lucas groans.

“Shut up! I’m trying to see if I can find something else in Ms Kelly’s files!”

“Dude,” Max sighs, “you’ve read them each four times already.”

“You won’t be able to find anything if you’re exhausted,” Nancy tries more softly. “Just try to sleep for a bit, okay?”

“Dustin, c’mon,” you reach for his hand— it’s a bit uncomfortable from your position on the couch and his on the floor, but you do it anyway. That seems to soothe him slightly, to see you still offering comfort, like you’re still yourself. He manages a weak nod, and he squeezes your hand slightly before turning the flashlight off.

After a few minutes, Dustin starts snoring loudly. Steve, who you’re unfortunately stuck sharing the couch with, chuckles.

“He’s a good kid,” he says.

“Yeah,” you can’t help but agree. You wouldn’t trade your dork brother for anything. “He’s great. When he was little, he used to wet his bed all time after watching scary movies with me, and he’d wake me up to change his sheets so my dad wouldn’t yell at him for ruining them.”

“Steve raises a silent eyebrow at you, sounding amused. “And you actually did that?”

“I forced him to watch them. I felt bad,” you smile at the memory. “He would offer to wash the dishes for me, though.”

“Your moral compass is stronger than mine,” he hums.

“You know, he…” you start, unsure if Dustin would be upset if you shared this, then decide it’s not as embarrassing as telling him he used to wet his bed, and continue, “he really admires you. God knows why, Harrington, but he worships the ground you walk on.”

“Henderson?” He asks, a little in disbelief. “I don’t know—”

“I’m serious, Harrington. He loves you,” You hoped you didn’t sound jealous. There had been a time where you thought Steve was almost a replacement for you as an older sibling, but as time went on you realized how important Steve was to him.

“Well. I’m pretty loveable.”

You roll your eyes. “Sure.”

“He’s pretty loveable, too,” Steve says after a few beats of silence, more softly now. “I don’t have any siblings, did you know that? So it’s… uhm, really cool to have him around. Even if he’s kind of a little shit sometimes.”

“Such a little shit,” you agree.

The rest of the group seems to be asleep already, or maybe they don’t care about the conversation enough to join you. Steve starts telling you about the time Dustin burrowed his hair gel and almost set fire to his bathroom, and you have to cover your mouth to stifle your giggles.

It’s not long before you start to feel abnormally cold, and can’t keep your body from trembling. Steve’s gentle voice is gone. The room is dark around you, and realizing that you must’ve fallen asleep while talking with Steve at some point, you hug yourself trying to seek some warmth. You try to grab a blanket from somewhere. Jesus, it’s spring for fuck’s sake, it shouldn’t be this cold. But you realize that despite the darkness you can see, and when you look up at the ceiling, you find a grandfather clock that most definitely doesn’t belong in the Wheeler’s basement.

“(Y/N).”

The voice calling your name is unfamiliar and it makes you feel ill almost immediately, like your stomach has turned into nothing but knots. You try to speak, to ask who it is, but nothing comes out, you can barely even breathe.

“Do you think you could ever keep living with this guilt?” The voice asks, somehow you feel as if the voice is right behind you, whispering into your ear. It’s like nails scraping against chalkboard in your eardrums. “Knowing what you did to your family?”

You want to turn around and find the voice, but you can’t, you can’t, you can’t. The clock is ticking, haunting you, calling for you. You want nothing but to run away from it, but you can’t move— you’re glued in place somehow, maybe in fear, you can’t tell. Everything is uncertain, except for the clock. The clock, you know, it’s real.

It’s counting down. You know what it’s trying to tell you. It’s coming for you and you can’t escape it. It’s only a matter of time now.

“Soon, (Y/N)...” It whispers. “Soon, I’ll come for you, and no one will be able to help you, (Y/N)... (Y/N). (Y/N)!”

You open your eyes with a gasp to find Steve’s arms around your shoulders, shaking you slightly. His eyes are wide, a little frightened. When you look around you find Lucas and Max draped all over a chair, their chests rising slowly, asleep. Dustin is in a sleeping bag on the floor, near Robin and Nancy, hugging each other tightly in their sleep. Steve is the only one awake.

“Shit,” you say, placing your hand in your heart. “Did I wake you?”

“We were talking and then you just went somewhere,” he says. “You don’t remember?”

You suddenly feel very cold. “I thought I was sleeping. I saw…” You think about telling Steve, but it seems pointless now, almost. What would you tell him? You saw a clock? “I think it was one of those hallucinations you guys keep talking about. You’re really freaking me the hell out, you know.”

“Fuck, I think Dustin’s right,” he says.

“About me being cursed by a being from another dimension? Are you kidding?”

Steve does manage to look apologetic. “I know it sounds bonkers, but that’s because it is. I’ve seen it.”

“What? This other dimension?” You were starting to think Dustin and his nanny were just trying to play an extremely elaborate joke on you.

“The Upside Down, but no,” he shakes his head, and then his eyes land somewhere around the room, focusing on one of Mike’s many posters. “The monsters.”

“Vecna?”

“Others,” he says, then murmurs, “Haven’t had the pleasure just yet.”

“The demoger…? What was it?”

“Demogorgon, yeah,” he grumbles. “The Mind flayer too. It’s all real. I wish Will and Eleven were here to actually explain this stuff; they are the ones who actually know their stuff about this.”

You have never seen Steve actually sound so… serious, before. It’s all actually starting to freak you out, you decide, and you aren’t sure if you actually want to find out if it’s all actually real or not. You stay silent for a few moments, sleep escaping you. You figure Steve’s fallen asleep until his voice startles you again.

“You okay there, Henderson?”

No, you want to say. You can’t shake the feeling that the voice is watching you, waiting to catch you by surprise. “Yeah,” you mumble, sleepless, scared.

Steve doesn’t seem to buy your answer however, because you feel his body shifting near your side of the couch, sitting right beside you. When you give him a look (he’s so close he can actually make it out) he clicks his tongue.

“See, I don’t really believe you, Henderson. So, I’m gonna stay near you, just in case you get another vision. Or if you want to hold my hand.”

“Screw you, Steve,” You glare, turning to the other side so that your view is Harrington-less. If you do feel better with him beside you, that’s between you and maybe Vecna, if he’s actually inside your head.

In the morning, when you wake up and Nancy and Robin are both gone (probably visiting a murderer in a mental hospital) and Steve is tangled up beside you, you decide you’ve had enough.

“So we’re just gonna wait around to see what happens?” Dustin argues, as Lucas and Max try to reason with him.

“What else can we do?” Lucas asks, frustrated.

“Literally anything else, dude! My sister might die!”

“Okay, Dustin, you need to stop and we need to go home, now,” you tell him, looking around the basement for your jacket.

“No!” he points at you. “You’re not going anywhere until we know what to do.”

“Dustin. I’m four years older than you,” you glare, placing your hands on your hips. “I’m the older sibling. I’ve entertained this enough already, but I left mom’s car at Dinah’s and we need to go get it and then get our asses home before mom loses her shit.”

“(Y/N)! Listen to me!”

“No, Dustin!” You finally snap, taking Dustin’s walkie-talkie from his hand and shoving it into your bag despite his protests. “I’ve had enough about monsters and other dimensions and whatever other nonsense Eddie Munson has been feeding you! We’re going home, now!”

“I can’t believe I’m actually trying to help you!” Dustin screams, “You suck!”

“Well, you’re stuck with me!”

“I wish I wasn’t,” he says, his eyes cold. “I wish you weren’t my sister.”

The chills return like a slap across your face, making you stumble backwards slightly. The room around you turns dark immediately, the only person left is Dustin in front of you. But it’s not him, it can’t be, his eyes have never looked this lifeless.

“You took his chance away, didn’t you?” The unfamiliar, bone chilling voice returns. “His chance of having a real family, or at least a father figure. He’s right in wishing you weren’t his sister. He deserves someone better.”

Again you want to scream, but it’s like your mouth is taped shut. Around you Mike Wheeler’s basement seems to fade away into blue, and suddenly you’re standing on your front porch, watching your dad walk away. You’re saying the hardness around your eyes, your lips drawn into a tight line. You don’t look like yourself; you look older, and tired, and disappointed, more like a woman than the girl you were when this happened, the girl you must’ve been.

“Don’t come back again,” you tell your father’s retreating form. But your voice is distorted, so far away.

“How many times has Dustin needed his father?” The voice asks. When you blink you’re somewhere else; not Mike’s basement, not your home. There’s splinters of wood scattered by your feet, like a house just destroyed. Everywhere around you is red, like blood, like the blood in those horror movies you forced Dustin to watch because he made them less scary when he squealed. “Are you proud you broke up your family?”

“I was a kid,” you manage to say, and only now you realize you’ve been crying all along, the salty tears wetting your dry lips. “I didn’t want Dustin to know what he did. I would take it back if I knew he wouldn’t actually come back.”

“But you did it anyway. You did.”

I did, I did, I did, you think, over and over. You close your eyes, hard, ignoring how it almost hurts.

“You miss him too, don’t you? Despite everything. You’re sadder about the fact that he left you, too. He left his daughter behind.”

“Who are you?” You hiss out, through your anguish.

“I’m part of you, (Y/N). Whether you want to or not.”

You’re not alone. When you open your eyes you see him — a monster, vicious even in looks, like someone slowly peeled away his skin, and all that was left of him was muscle and meat, not even blood. Vecna. Around you there are two different bloody columns, and you’re quick to notice they’re holding Chrissy and Fred’s bodies, like morbid museum displays, tokens. He was right, Dustin was telling the truth about everything, and now you were going to die because you didn’t listen to him.

“No,” you want to say, you want to scream. But you’re not strong enough, you can’t—

Hey, hey, hey, hey

You blink through your tears. You manage to recognize that melody in this unfamiliar place. You want to run towards it, but you’re not sure your legs can even respond to your commands right now.

Vecna seems to think something’s wrong, too, because as the song progresses he grows more impatient. “You think you can escape like this?”

Tell me your troubles and doubts

Giving everything inside and out and

Love's strange, so real in the dark

Think of the tender things that we were working on

His hands— his claws are stroking your cheeks, an aborted tender gesture, like he’s trying to soothe his prey before going for the kill. It’s over, you think, there’s nothing but this certain death. But then; you think of the hundreds of times you forced Dustin to watch this movie with you; of you both playing with Tews until he scratches one of you in annoyance; driving Mike, Lucas, Dustin and Will to the movies; getting ice cream at Scoops Ahoy and guggling when Steve gets rejected once again; putting Dustin’s hair in braids and practicong makeup on him when he was younger; asking Will Byers what he was sketching at the park; Dustin and you laughing during dinner because of some stupid joke. You think about last night, sleeping beside Steve, and the way he made you laugh.

Don't you, forget about me

Don't, don't, don't, don't

Don't you, forget about me

You can’t give up. You can’t leave Dustin.

Somehow you manage to pull Vecna off you with a shove, and you run. You run, you run as fast as your legs let you, as your jeans stain with what looks like blood, as Vecna screams at you. You run like you've never run before.

And then you gasp and you’re falling.

“Shit, fuck, shit!” Someone’s arms are around you, and it takes you a second to calm down to realize it’s Steve, and that you’re in Mike Wheeler’s basement and you’re alive, somehow.

“Holy fucking shit,” Max is saying, but you can barely hear her over the rapid beating of your own heart— erratic, but unquestionably alive.

“God, god, (Y/N),” Dustin’s voice stands out from the others, and when you look at him there are tears streaming down his eyes, and you can barely process anything before you’re trying to reach for him despite feeling like you’re not even in your own body.

“I’m okay,” you tell him, wrapping your arms around his shoulders, Steve letting go of yours. “I’m okay, I’m okay.”

“I thought you were gonna die,” he whimpers.

“I’m here,” you breathe out. “Oh my God, I’m here thanks to you.”

You realize that the song is still playing, only to notice the headphones in your ears. You see your scattered bag around the room, and the walkie-talkie that Dustin must’ve been looking for already on the floor. Don’t You (Forget About Me) slowly fades to an end before the next song on the soundtrack starts.

“I’m sorry,” Dustin says into your shirt. “I’m sorry I didn’t notice you were going through something, I should’ve noticed. I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.” You shake your head, holding your little brother even closer. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. And I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. Fuck, Dustin, I’m so sorry.”

You stay like that for a moment, hugging Dustin on the carpet, Max and Lucas hovering near, and Steve’s hand on your shoulder, grounding you.

📼📼📼📼📼📼📼📼📼

When you explain to Nancy what happened and what you saw once she comes back from Pennhurst she’s quick to pinpoint the house you saw when you met Vecna as Victor Creel’s house. All of you grab your things and head to that location. You try to not feel so dreadful, and Dustin forcing you to listen to Don’t You the entire car ride and holding onto your jacket sleeve helps soothe your nerves, at least a little bit.

But Victor Creel’s house is something out of a horror story, dark and abandoned as it is, and the only light source in the house seems to be the hole Robin made when she smashed the window.

“Let’s split up,” Nancy offers, and everyone seems to comply much to your dismay.

Lucas and Max leave to investigate with Dustin (reluctantly parting from your side) trailing off behind them, Nancy and Robin head upstairs and you and Steve are stuck together and instructed to stay downstairs by Nancy, the only thing illuminating your way being your flashlights.

You wander through hallways, staring at ruined wallpaper and dusty portraits. Victor and his family seemed so happy in their pictures, and you wonder why nobody, family or not, ever came to look for their things. The house seemed frozen in time, like one day the family had decided to get up and leave everything behind, the house nothing more than ghosts.

“I hate this place,” you comment, trying to hug yourself tightly to keep the cold at bay. “Thinking that people died here is…”

“Horrible,” Steve finishes for you. “Yeah… Fuck this place, man.”

When you turn to a corner, you freeze in place.

“Steve.”

“Yeah?”

“You’re seeing this, right?” You point at a clock with your flashlight, unmoving. It’s the same clock from your visions, the one you saw before meeting Vecna.

“Yeah,” Steve frowns. “Real old. Why?”

“I saw it,” you try to explain through the rapid beating of your own heart. “In my visions, I mean. This clock was in them— well, the second one, mostly. In the Wheeler’s basement last night.”

“Shit…” Eloquent as ever, Steve Harrington. “Has to mean something, right?”

“If anything it proves Nancy and Robin were right. It all started here.” You finally force yourself to look away and continue forward, ignoring the way you feel your skin crawling. You hold up your cassette before re-starting the song. “What would happen if I suddenly got tired of this song? Will it no longer work? Does this mean Vecna will… come back for me?”

“Listen, I— I’m not a genius at this like your brother, or like Nancy, or even Robin,” Steve admits, very honestly. “But I promise we’ll find a way, even if that happens. Besides, Dustin told us how much you love this song. Seems kinda impossible you’ll ever get tired of it if you listen to it every day. And listen, I gotta ask. Breakfast club?”

“What?” You feel heat rise up to your cheeks, embarrassed. You start walking away from the clock, trying to get rid of the chills that had gotten ahold of you just a few moments before. “It’s a great movie.”

“Yeah, absolutely,” Steve says, and even though you can’t really see him in the dark, you can hear his smirk, picture his smile. He’s teasing, and you’re kind of glad for it. It helps. “I just didn’t think it would be your thing, is all.”

You raise an eyebrow. “Oh? What’s my thing then?”

“I don’t know. You seem like a Dune fan, maybe.” He wonders out loud, your flashlight lighting the way.

“I do like the book.”

“See?” Steve points at his temple. “I knew it.”

“I think working at Family Video is finally getting to you.”

“I’m good at reading people,” he says, and you raise another silent eyebrow at him. He continues, “I’d always thought of you as a little brainiac, and that you’d liked movies that were kinda difficult. You were always reading in school. I didn’t think you’d like teen flicks and Hughes.”

“Dune is not difficult. And maybe you don’t really know me enough to know what my thing is,” you shrug. “... Or maybe every girl is a little bit in love with Judd Nelson.”

“Yeah,” Steve actually laughs. “Can’t beat that hair.”

And you can’t help yourself, you smirk. You think you might actually be dreaming, or maybe this curse made Steve seem more tolerable than usual. “You give him a good run for his money.”

“We’re still talking about hair here, right?”

Now you point your flashlight at Steve and elbow him.

“I’m just asking!”

“It was a stupid question. And just so you know, there’s nothing wrong about liking teen flicks,” you say, continuing to walk and not waiting to see if Steve follows. “Pretty in Pink is my new favorite movie and my GPA is still 3.5.”

“Oh wow. Pretty in Pink?” He whistles. “You have a soft spot for Molly Ringwald.”

“Who doesn’t?”

He hums in response.

You stay like that for a moment, walking through dusty hallways and trying to avoid spider webs. Even with the flashlights the place looks abandoned and lonely, and there’s a coldness running down your spine that you can’t shake off no matter how much you try. You focus on trying to catch the sound of Steve’s breathing to somehow ground yourself to reality. It feels like ever since meeting Vecna your grip on reality slowly fades away, like someone is unraveling the carpet from underneath you, trying to catch you by surprise. Like you’re falling into an abyss of darkness and you can’t hold onto anything— because nothing around you is truly real. And so you bite your lip to keep yourself from reaching out to Steve and holding on. You can’t think of a moment you’ve felt as uncertain as you do now; but Steve’s teasing and your bickering back and forth is normal, makes you feel like you’re not actually in immediate danger. You figure if there’s a different dimension called the Upside Down, then you can most definitely forgive Steve Harrington for being a jerk in High School. He has more than proven himself to you.

Because the truth is that maybe Vecna will win. Maybe you will never beat this curse. And you’ll end up like Chrissy Cunningham, like Fred Benson, like Patrick McKinney; just dead bodies along the trail.

“Hey, Steve,” you call, slowing down to walk beside him. He turns to look at you, but you can’t bring yourself to look at him. “Uhm. If something… like, happened to me—”

“Woah, woah, wait,” Steve shakes his head. “Nothing will. We beat the curse, remember? With the song?”

“Yeah, but we didn’t actually beat it, did we?” Now you do turn to look at him, and his big eyes almost render you speechless. You don’t know what to call the look on his eyes, but it makes you want to look away from him; makes you want to run. “Listen, Steve, I just— I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” he says, quickly. You think he’s noticed how embarrassed you feel, and you look away, embarrassed. “You’re just scared shitless like the rest of us.”

“It’s not that,” you shake your head. “I’m sorry for being such a jerk around you and picking fights with you. You’ve— you’ve been there for Dustin when I wasn’t, and I guess you’re not actually a bad guy. So… I’m sorry I judged you. And thank you, I guess. For being there for Dustin. And… me.”

Steve doesn’t say anything for a second. You’re still looking anywhere but him, now focusing your eyes on a spider in one of the many spider webs in front of you. You feel embarrassed and stupid, but a little bit better. You know you’re doing the right thing by apologizing— you know Steve now, better than you’ve ever thought you would. You finally dare to take one look at him and his eyes are still on you, and when your eyes lock, he smiles softly.

“You’re apologizing for that?” Steve asks, and when you nod matter of factly, he tilts his head to the side. “Huh. Never thought I’d see the day Henderson’s sister apologized to me.”

“Don’t let it get to your head, Harrington,” you roll your eyes, but can’t help the small smile forming on your lips. “I’m only doing this because I might die.”

Steve chuckles, nodding. “Fair enough,” he says. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry too, Henderson. To be honest, I think I kind of deserved it. I was an asshole in High School, so… yeah. I, uh, I’m sorry it took me getting kicked off the clique to realize you’re not half bad.”

“Well,” Now it’s your turn to laugh. “It took me almost dying to realize you’re not half bad either. I think we’re even.”

Steve stops in his tracks, making you stop, too, a little confused. You turn to look at him, and you don’t think you’ve ever seen him look quite so… earnest, maybe. You can’t name the look on his face, but you can’t look away, can’t seem to be able to keep walking. You’re frozen in place.

“You’re not gonna die, Henderson,” he says, determined. “I won’t let you.”

Your mouth goes dry. All you can do in response is nod. You want to say something, but the words escape you, and so you stare at each other for a few seconds, neither of you saying anything. You wonder if Steve can hear the rapid beating of your heart, if he can make out the way your eyes drop to his lips for a slow second despite the darkness around you both.

Then you hear Dustin yell out, “Guys!” and the moment fades away.

📼📼📼📼📼📼📼📼📼

Finding Eddie at Skull Rock seems to be harder than it should be, and once you find him you’re made to follow Dustin’s apparently broken compass. You feel like you’re wandering through the desert, with no clear path in mind. Dustin is at the front, with Lucas and Max following closely behind, Eddie (who you now have a hard time believing would ever be able to kill anyone), Robin and Nancy in front of you and Steve.

You find yourself time and time again choosing to spend more time with Steve, that he seems to be the one able to actually make you feel grounded, like you’re not gonna die in the next three seconds. You feel like yourself around him; but different. Steve is different. This whole experience is making you rethink everything you’ve ever known.

You can’t help but wonder in the silence about Dustin and the others, guiding the rest of you through the night time in the forest. Despite all of them being younger than you, they don’t seem to need your help, especially Dustin, who you think is completely in his element leading the way.

After a while of walking in silence, Dustin announces that the compass seems to be going even crazier. At this, Robin pries it off his hands to confirm that it’s true. Eddie and Dustin argue for a second about following the compass and make another Lord of the Rings reference that has you smiling.

“He’s not half bad,” you comment. “Eddie, I mean.”

“I still don’t know what the hell Modor is,” Steve mumbles under his breath.

You don’t try to explain Lord of The Rings to him— you don’t think there’s even enough time. But, maybe one day, when Hawkins isn’t in imminent danger and Steve still wants to hang out with your uncool self for whatever reason.

“What do you think we’ll find wherever this stupid compass is taking us?” You ask him, trying to avoid accidentally stepping on some poison ivy. Just your luck to get cursed and also poisoned on the same week. “You know more about this than me.”

“I’m actually more like, the, uhm, action guy of the group.”

“So you’re telling me you don’t know where we’re going,” You conclude.

Steve nods. “No damn clue, Henderson.”

“Great,” you chuckle lightly.

“All I know is that it’s probably a portal Vecna opened after killing someone.”

“A portal. To the upside down?” When Steve nods in confirmation, you sigh. “I still can’t get used to how crazy this is.”

“The third time you do this you kind of just start going with the flow of things,” Steve admits. “Russian spies, MK-Ultra, different dimensions, monsters— it all just kind of starts to sound like background noise.”

“Dustin and the kids seem to really know about all of this.”

“They do,” Steve nods. “Dustin is like, their leader. Our leader, I guess.”

“My little brother… fighting communists and monsters.” You shake your head. “Yeah, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that. How did Nancy? With you and Mike?”

Steve stops for a second to frown at you. “With me?”

“You know, with Nancy and you dating.”

“Me and Nancy?” he asks, then shakes his head. “No, me and Nance just… we go way back, but she’s with Jonathan. That ship sailed a long time ago. We’re friends now. Besides, she’s the one killing more monsters than me.”

“Oh.”

There’s no way to ignore the way your heart skips a beat at this, or the hopeful glint in Steve’s eyes. The rest of the woods disappear and it’s only you and Steve and your rapidly beating heart. The others are lost to you, in their own little world, searching in the dark with their flashlights like fireflies.

“Yeah,” Steve scratches the back of his neck. “And, just in case, me and Robin are not a thing, either. Just friends.”

“Platonic with a capital P!” You hear Robin yell out in front of you.

You can’t help the laugh that bubbles out of you at Steve’s blush. “Yeah, yeah, think she got it, Buckley, thanks.”

“You’re welcome!”

“That’s… good to know,” you comment.

Steve raises his eyebrows at you, then scratches his chin. “Is it? Good to know?”

You nod slowly, avoiding his gaze. “Maybe.”

“Maybe. Okay. Maybe is—” he breathes out. “Maybe is cool.”

“Maybe is really cool,” you allow yourself a small smile.

“Really?” Steve inquires, and when he notices his smile he gifts you one of his own. “Okay. That’s great. Maybe is really cool. Cool. Cool beans.”

“Yeah?” You bite your lip, finally daring to look at him.

Steve follows your movement with his eyes. “Yeah,” he says, breathless.

“Hey guys,” Dustin’s voice rings out, the moment gone. “I think we found the portal!”

You both follow Dustin’s voice until you reach a lake, where Eddie explains Vecna killed Patrick when he was running away from Jason and the rest of the basketball team.

“So the portal is… what?” Robin asks, “Underwater?”

Dustin shrugs. “Worth a shot.”

He starts climbing up the boat, and you’re quick to grab him by the sleeves of his shirt to stop him.

“Just what do you think you’re doing?” You ask him.

“Looking for the portal,” Dustin says, matter-of-factly.

“You told me this portal is supposed to teleport you to another dimension, one Will Byers got stuck in,” you reply, pulling him away from the boat. “You’re not going anywhere near that portal. None of you kids are.”

“Who died and made you the boss?”

“Three people died,” you note.

“I made her the boss,” Robin quips. “Well, Nancy might technically be the boss, actually. Nance?”

Nancy blinks at Robin’s words. “Uh, yeah. Sure.”

“Nance says yes.”

Eddie frowns. “Yes to being the boss or yes to—”

“Let’s just go,” Nancy urges, gesturing at Steve to help her drag the boat offshore. Steve complies, and helps Nancy climb into the boat, followed by Robin and then Eddie.

“But what about the curse?” Dustin wonders, looking at you.

“I have this, remember?” You hold up the cassette player, and wink at your brother. “Don’t worry about me, okay? Look after Lucas and Max. Nancy might be the boss, but you’re their leader.”

“Okay, yeah,” he nods, sounding more like he’s talking to reassure himself than anything.

“Compass, please,” you tell him, and Dustin complies unhappily. You can’t help yourself from grabbing him by the cheeks and kissing his forehead like you did when he was younger. Despite being a good leader, a fighter, he’ll always be little Dusty, who steals your waffles and makes really bad coffee. “See you soon.”

Steve offers his hand to help you climb the boat and you take it with a tiny smile.

The trip on the boat is short and dark. Even with Steve using his flashlight to try and light the way, it’s barely enough to keep you from being engulfed in the darkness of the night. When was the last time the moon shone down in Hawkins? There are almost no stars above, the view chillingly dark. You fear what you might find. Nancy stares at Dustin’s compass, trying to give any semblance of direction when the compass starts going crazy.

Steve starts pulling off his socks.

“Steve,” Nancy says slowly, “what are you doing?”

“Somebody’s gotta go down there and check this thing out. Was one of you four Hawkin’s High’s swimming co-captain and a certified lifeguard for three years?” He figures, already working on his other shoe. “It’s gotta be me, no complaints, alright?”

Eddie chuckles nervously. “Hey… I’m not complaining. I do not wanna go down there.”

You watch as Eddie takes something off his pocket and throws it on the boat’s floor. You want to stop Steve somehow, irrationally, because as far as you know Nancy, Robin and Eddie can’t dive, and you can barely float — but the words die on your throat when you look up and Steve is peeling off his shirt.

“Here,” Eddie says, and you realize now he had wrapped a plastic bag around a flashlight and is now handing it back to Steve. “Good luck.”

“Thanks,” Steve says, taking it from his hands.

“Steve,” Robin rasps out before he dives, and Steve stops to look at her. “Don’t… die?”

“Gee,” he scoffs. “Thanks for the encouraging speech, Robs.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Don’t die, seriously,” you manage to tell him, wanting to reach for his hand but stopping yourself. “Or I’ll kill you.”

Steve nods. He looks like he wants to say something else, but keeps his mouth shut before diving underwater.

The silence on the boat almost kills you, as it rocks quietly, everyone holds their breath waiting for Steve to come up once again. Your heart is in your throat, Don’t You still playing softly in your eardrums, the cassette player still on, a constant to remind you you’re still here. Miraculously.

“He’s…” Eddie whistles. “He’s got balls, King Steve.”

“Yeah,” you nod, looking at the water like you’re hypnotized, waiting for his soaked head to pop up.

“Not what you’d expect,” he adds, a little quietly.

“No,” Robin says, and the way she says it— so fond, so genuine. You couldn’t agree more. Steve is so much more than what you’d expected him to be. “Not at all.”

You stay silent for a few more seconds, all of you waiting for Steve to come back. When he does he emerges with a gasp for air, startling the rest of you. Eddie screams so loud you hear it perfectly well over the music.

“Found it,” Steve claims, holding onto the edge of the boat.

“You found it?” Nancy repeats.

“It was pretty wild,” Steve explains that he seemed to have stumbled into the portal, like an open gate illuminating the bottom of the lake and tinting it red. “It was pretty damn big—”

Before he can continue, Steve is pulled into the water once again, and you jump up instinctively, trying to reach for his hand, but he escapes your grasp quickly. He emerges again and you breathe a sigh of relief— but it’s short lived, because Steve is dragged under once again and he’s not coming up.

“Steve!” you yell. “Steve!”

“What the hell was that, man?!”

Between all the screaming going on, the only thing you can think about is Steve, Steve, Steve—

And so you stand up.

“Wait, (Y/N),” Nancy starts, “What are you—”

“You’re not going in there!” Eddie screams, trying to grab you by the arm.

“I—” You start, but can’t seem to decide on what to say. You don’t know what you’re trying to do, but you know you’ll do it anyway. You have no plan, that much is certain, you’ve never fought a day in your life. “I can’t just stay here!”

“Are you insane?!”

Robin pales. “No, (Y/N), wait—”

With one last look at the rest of the guys, you dive into the water and swim. You’ve never been a good swimmer, but you find yourself swimming like you’ve never had, quickly finding the red portal Steve had mentioned before being dragged down here. What you find on the other side reminds you of when you met Vecna— when he showed you your memories, cold, distorted and dark. You briefly wonder if Vecna had managed to drag you all the way here then, but you have no time to dwell on it too much.

Steve is laying on his back, as some creatures bite at his abdomen incessantly, like leeches. They are choking him, curling their tails around his neck. You stand up and run towards him, only to notice the others have followed behind you, their wet footsteps a reassurance.

“(Y/N)!” Nancy yells, making you turn. She throws one of the boat’s paddles at you, keeping one for herself.

You manage to catch it, God knows how. Steve is still struggling when you get to him, and the first thing you do is smack one of the things across the face, forcing it on its back and stopping it from further gnawing Steve’s abdomen. You see as Robin starts stomping on the one who has its tail curled around Steve’s neck, and Nancy takes on the other one.

“Shit,” Eddie murmurs when he looks up the sky and sees even more of them approaching.

One of them starts going after Nancy, Eddie trying to come to her rescue by grabbing Steve’s still working flashlight and smacking it as hard as he can manage. You help Robin by hitting the one she’s stomping on with the paddle, until Steve manages to bite its tail, forcing it to curl itself from his neck.

With more coming, you are distracted enough to barely notice when Steve manages to behead it, his lips stained with pitch black blood.

“Jesus christ,” Eddie mumbles. “Jesus H Christ!”

The adrenaline pumping through your veins, your heartbeat going faster— everything seems to go for so long, when in reality it must’ve been just a few minutes.

“Steve,” you manage to rasp out, walking towards him, only looking at his wounds, unsure of what you can do to help him. “Shit, Steve, are you okay?”

“They only took about a pound of flesh,” he says, making you sigh. “But other than that… Yeah, never better.”

He stares at you when he says it, and you can’t help the way your breath catches.

“You’ll need bandages,” Nancy notes.

“Do you guys know if these bats have like, rabbies?” Robin wonders aloud. Aware that everyone’s eyes are on her, Robin starts rambling about rabies symptoms and death. You and Steve glance at each other.

Steve’s chest is still rising erratically, exhausted, when he asks, “What the hell are you talking about, Robin?”

Before Robin can go on any longer though, the sky is tinted red again, and the screeching of even more approaching creatures gets you on edge.

“We need to get the fuck out of here,” you say, and the rest of the group seem to agree.

The five of you break into a run into the forest, as far as you can before Steve’s wounds start to appear more serious, and when Nancy deems it safe enough, you stop near a tree where Steve can lean against, still breathing rapidly. You remember that Nancy said he’d need bandages, and so you take the hem of your pants and start ripping them open.

“What are you—” Steve starts.

“Bandages,” you say. “I saw this in Indiana Jones.”

“Indiana Jones?” Steve asks with a chuckle, looking up at the sky, smiling. “Your movie choices keep surprising me, Henderson.”

You tie the cloth around his wounds as tightly as you can, hopeful that it’s a good enough job to keep him from bleeding out until you guys get out of here. The wounds don’t look too bad, but you have no idea how long you'll stay here for. Nancy, looking over your shoulders, seems to approve of your bandage work.

“Thanks,” Steve rasps out.

“Just don’t die on me,” you nod, staring at his eyes.

“I’ll try not to.”

He holds your gaze, your mouth going even more dry than it already is. “I’ll hold you to that, Harrington.”

You’re interrupted when Steve catches something behind you. It’s Eddie’s jean vest. When you turn, Eddie scrunches up his nose.

“For modesty, man.”

“We escaped now, but there’s more of those monsters than what we saw,” Nancy interrupts, walking around, trying to think. “They’ll come looking for us. We need to get out of here.”

“So,” Eddie starts, running a hand through his mouth. “What the hell do we do now? How do we get out of here, exactly?”

“We need to find another portal, right?” Robin replies. “That’s the only way to get out of here. But we can’t go back to Watergate, it’s probably full of those bats now. Those bats full of rabies!”

“Right now, the most important thing is to defend ourselves,” Nancy says. “We don’t know what kind of monsters are down here. Maybe they’re even worse than that.”

“Hell,” Eddie breathes. “You think Vecna is here?”

“I don’t know… Maybe.”

A chill runs down your spine at the mention of Vecna’s name. Your hand flies to your ear, and only then you realize you’ve jumped in the water with your headphones on, and when you reach the player secured inside your front pocket it’s wet and broken. Through the adrenaline of the fight, you hadn’t even noticed that the song was no longer playing.

“Shit,” Nancy breathes out, looking at your ruined headphones. “The player.”

“It’s ruined,” you lament, seeing the way it’s soaked. You toss the cassette player to the ground, near Steve’s feet, who pales even more, if it’s even possible.

“Fuck,” he says, breathless, the slight reassuring smile he’d been wearing disappears in an instant. He stands up straight despite his body clearly protesting against it. “We need to find another one before it’s too late.”

“Would it even work here?” Robin wonders. “If it’s one from the Upside Down, I mean. Things seem to be… kind of broken here, don’t they?”

“Then we need to get her out of here right now,” Steve urges, and when he starts trying to walk away it’s Eddie who stops him.

“Dude, do you want your intestines to hang out of your abdomen like some shitty Nightmare on Elm Street scene?” he asks, “Stay still! Those bats could be anywhere!”

“We need to move!”

“Steve, wait a second,” you urge after him.

“We could go to my house,” Nancy offers. “I have guns. We could use them to fend off the demo… bats, or whatever. And we need a player. We can use Mike’s, he has one he didn’t take to California.”

Eddie blinks. “You, Nancy Wheeler… have guns.”

Robin grins. “Full of surprises, isn’t she?”

Steve is already on his way despite his groans of pain, and even though the wounds had seemed pretty superficial to you when you wrapped them up, it doesn’t mean that they don’t hurt like a bitch.

“Steve, you’re just hurting yourself even more now,” Now Robin is sighing, exasperated. You briefly wonder how many times she’s had to deal with Steve like this.

“Let’s go,” he says, ignoring her.

“Steve...” you try to stop him, but he turns around quickly.

“Let’s go!”

Robin scoffs, crossing his arms. “Where are we even going, oh great leader?”

“Nancy’s!”

You all turn to look at each other, unsure if following Steve is the best idea, but with nothing else to do and no other ideas, there’s only one thing to do.

And so you all start walking.

📼📼📼📼📼📼📼📼📼

It’s a while before you arrive at the Wheeler’s, the five of you mostly exhausted from the fight, with Steve clutching his wounds but still leading the way, right next to Nancy. You’re all on edge the entire way back, but despite the lack of music you don’t feel different yet, and you don’t encounter any more demobats, as Nancy had called them.

Nancy’s house seems haunted in this place, just as much as the rest of Hawkins seems to be. Despite housing monsters, the Upside Down looks more like a ghost town than anything. You couldn’t help but wonder how tiny Will Byers had ever survived something like this so young… Nobody ever gives that kid enough credit.

Nancy wastes no time climbing up the stairs; she almost seems unaffected looking at her house like this, so… dead. She hovers near a door and turns to look at you.

“This is Mike’s room,” she nods at it. “His cassette player should be in there. Me, Eddie and Robin will get the guns and look for the cassette in my room.”

You agree to it, and she disappears down the hallway along with Eddie and Robin. You and Steve enter Mike’s room, start rummaging through cabinets. You work in silence. You’ve never seen Steve this quiet, this focused. You wonder if he’s mad at you— he had to be. Now besides demobats and trying to escape, he had to help you too because you’d went and done something stupid and completely irrational.

Steve clears his throat, holding up something in his hand. “Found it,” he calls. “Think it’ll work?” He wonders aloud, as you close the closet door before walking up to him.

“Here,” You say, then pull your ruined flashlight from your back pocket. You hit the back of it against the palm of your hand and the batteries come off. You’re not sure if this might work since the flashlight got wet and stopped working once you jumped into the water, but once you plug them into the cassette player it seems to come to life. Steve sighs, relieved. “Thank God that worked. Let’s get that stupid cassette and get out of here.”

“Sounds good to me,” he quips. He wets his lips, looking around. “You don’t feel any different, though, right?” When you shake your head, he seems to be able to relax a bit. “When we were on our way here, Eddie told me you didn’t waste a second to help me.”

You wait for Steve to continue, but he doesn’t.

“I’ve never been much of an adventurer when we were kids,” you say. “Dustin wanted to climb trees and go camping, and I wanted to stay home and read books. We used to fight all the time because I never wanted to play outside with him, because I was scared of bugs and dirt and I just wanted to stay inside.”

Steve doesn’t say anything to that, but he’s near you, hoving near your hand, like he knows you need the comfort, unsure if it’d be wanted from him.

“If I don’t make it out of this stupid curse, Steve,” you breathe out, legs feeling so shaky you want to throw up, “I need you to promise me you’ll take care of Dustin.”

“He’ll kill me before I let you die,” Steve says, trying t sound lighthearted but failing.

“Steve,” you rag out. “Promise me. Please.”

Steve nods, his voice soft in the way it does when he’s trying to be gentle. “Y—yeah. Of course. You know little Henderson’s like my own little brother.”

“I know,” you acknowledge. “You’ve been a way better sibling than me. I’ve been such a shitty sister and I’m… I’m really glad Dustin has you.”

“That’s not true,” he argues, reaching for your arm in the darkness of the room— you want to flinch away. “He loves you, (Y/N). Seriously, you should hear the way he talks about you when you’re not around.”

You ignore the sting in your eyes and berate yourself for tearing up.

“It’s my fault,” you whisper.

“What?”

“It’s my fault my dad walked away,” you shake your head, tearing your arm away from Steve’s touch, feeling cold as soon as you’re away from him. But you deserve it, you deserve the cold. “I told him I hated him after I learned he cheated on mom and that he had another family, and he never came back. I told him I never wanted to see him again. I’m the reason Dustin doesn’t have a dad now. But— but I was just fifteen, I didn’t— I didn’t know what I was asking—”

“Stop, stop,” Steve interrupts, and suddenly he’s pulling you close to your chest and holding you close.

And suddenly that’s all you need to break down, tears flowing freely down your cheeks. You feel embarrased, stupid for crying about something like this when the world might be about to end, horrifyingly guilty for everything— but for the first time you feel like something has been finally lifted off your chest and you can breathe, here, with Steve holding you. You’re glad Steve stayed behind with you. In truth, you think you might just be glad for Steve.

If someone had told you a week ago you’d be crying in Steve Harrington’s arms you would’ve smacked them. Life can change really fast, huh?

“Nobody is going to die,” his voice is so soft. You’d never thought you’d think of Steve’s voice as anything other than grating, but now you hold onto it like a lifeline. “I won’t let that happen.”

You breathe into his chest. You finally manage to let go of him, thanking God the others weren’t near. You miss the warmth almost immediately, as much as you don’t want to admit it. “Shit, sorry, your bandages.”

“You need to stop doing that,” he quips.

“What?”

“Apologizing so much,” he reaches for your arm again before walking, and you thank him silently. You have to bite your tongue not to apologize again. “Let’s go get that cassette.”

When you both step into Nancy’s room, the silence is almost deafening.

“What happened?”

“The guns,” Nancy explains, her eyes focused on her nightstand, not looking up at either of you. “They aren’t here. But so many things that shouldn’t be are. Like— like my curtains, and these— these toys I gifted my cousin Joanna. They haven’t been here since 1983.”

“We’re stuck in time, dude,” Eddie finishes for her.

“Three years, to be exact.”

“What?” Steve asks, confused. “Three years into the past?”

“... From when Will disappeared, you mean?” You question.

Nancy nods. “Yeah, I… think so. But, (Y/N), If we’re three years in the past, it means The Breakfast Club isn’t out yet,” Nancy swallows, hard, then finally looks up to stare into your eyes.

“What do you mean?” Steve asks, his chest rising erratically.

You bite your lip. “She means the song doesn’t exist, either.”

Nancy closes her eyes.

“I’m sorry, (Y/N).”

“Fuck!” Steve yells, “fuck!”

He kicks one of Nancy’s nightstands with so much force he manages to force it into the ground, Nancy’s belongings following suit, scattering around the carpet, making Nancy flinch.

“Steve,” you whisper, trying to reach for him. “Stop.”

Steve sits on Nancy’s bed, hand covering his mouth. He lets you rest your hand on his arm, and he breathes out another curse. He almost looks frozen in place like this, and it reminds you that everything in here feels like it is— ghosts, so many ghosts. You feel like you’re stuck in hell.

“Maybe any song will work,” Robin offers a little desperately, going through Nancy’s drawers, pulling out different cassettes and soundtracks, Duran Duran, Madonna, Elton John. “C’mon guys, one has to work.”

Eddie scratches his neck. “Doesn’t it have to be her favorite song? Isn’t that what Henderon said?”

“Screw it,” Nancy shakes her head, taking in a shaky breath. “We have to try whatever we can. This is our only option.”

“Okay,” you nod, shakily, prying your hand off of Steve’s arm, reaching to cruch own next to Robin and look through the rest of Nancy’s cassettes. “Okay, let’s— let’s try it.”

Robin holds up Total Eclipse of the Heart. “You like Bonnie Tyler?”

“Seems as good as anything,” you nod, taking it from her hands. As the first notes of Total Eclipse start playing, you gulp nervously, praying this might work, that you have at least enough time to get out of here alive.

Steve still looks miserable, but seems a little calmer now. “We need to get out of here right now.”

“How?” Robin sighs. “How did Will ever manage to get out of this place?”

“There has to be a way,” Nancy figures, then something seems to dawn on her. “Will. Will used to talk to Joyce with the Christmas lights while he was stuck in the Upside Down.”

“The Christmas lights?” Eddie asks, incredulously. “What are you talking about?”

As she explains, you can’t help but think that Nancy Wheeler is absolutely brilliant. You can’t blame Steve for falling in love with her before. She’s interrupted by Robin rather quickly though, when she claims she can hear Dustin’s voice— soon enough, all of you start to hear him, distorted and distant, but it's there no less. Quickly Dustin communicates that he thinks there might be another portal in Eddie’s trailer and that seems to be your best shot at an escape.

Robin and Nancy leave to get some supplies for the trip— whatever they can find to use as a weapon, while Eddie wanders off behind them, with the excuse of rummaging through little Wheeler’s action figures. Steve stays with you, as you stare at Holly’s Lite Brite, unsure on what to do.

You trust Dustin and his plan, of course you do. Dustin’s done nothing but prove himself to you these past few days. Still, the thought that everything might go incredibly wrong is almost unshakable at this point. What was it Max said to you? Something about how Vecna’s curse made people feel hopeless and lonely.

“You okay, right?” Steve wonders aloud, searching your face. “You haven’t had any visions yet?”

You haven’t felt Vecna’s pull yet, but you don’t want to be overly optimistic just yet. “I’m okay, I think. Are you?”

You glance down at his bandages, but he only nods. “Yeah, they don’t hurt anymore. I’m more worried about you.”

Warmth spreads all over your cheeks and inside your chest, but now’s really not the time for all of these feelings, and so you try to squeeze them out, to focus on something else.

“I just hope the plan works,” you mumble. “I want to get out of here.”

“You—” Steve shakes his head, looks at you with a look you can’t name. But he sounds frustrated, exhausted. “You just jumped in after me? You didn’t even think…” he trails off. “Eddie said you just jumped. Fucking jumped. You’re unbelievable, you know that, don’t you, Henderson? Absolutely fucking unbelievable.”

You look down at your hands.

“It was stupid, I know, I—”

“Thank you,” Steve murmurs, honesty bleeding into every word he speaks. You look up at him, surprised. “You saved my ass back there.”

The truth is you hadn’t doubted one second— you hadn’t even stopped to think about what might happen to you. Helping Steve was more important to you than anything in that moment, and you didn’t regret it, how could you regret that?

“You saved my ass first, back at the Wheeler’s,” you smile at him. “Even later, in the woods, and at Creel’s house. I don’t know if I could have kept going without you… so thank you.”

Steve stays silent for a few seconds, unsure of how to continue. You can practically feel him grow nervous now, when he clears his throat and begins speaking. “Listen, I know we are on the brink of life and death and maybe world threatening danger, but I kinda need some motivation to get out of here.”

“Yeah?”

“So, now that you know me and Nancy aren’t really a thing, and that me and Robin are platonic with a capital P…”

“Keep going.”

“And since you know, maybe is really cool,” you nod, trying to fight off a smile. “We should, maybe, go on a date together.”

“Hm…” you place a hand on your chin. “I don’t know. I’m not sure I can go out with someone who doesn’t like Pretty in Pink.”

“I’ve never said I didn’t,” he shrugs. “I just haven’t even seen it.”

“You haven’t seen Pretty in Pink, you monster?!”

“You know, I’m actively bleeding out here,” Steve gestures at your last minute bandages, his smile almost as handsome as him, even more so after tearing off a bat monster’s head off. Even more so now that it seems you finally have a plan to get out of this goddamn place. “You’re gonna make a dying man wait?”

“You’re not dying, Harrington.” You smack him gently across the shoulders. “I won’t let you.”

Steve chuckles, his hand finding its way to yours, almost nervous, scared of rejection.

“So? What do you say?”

“I say that if we get out of here alive, and it seems like kind of a longshot right now…” you acknowledge, holding onto his hand and squeezing. “I would really, really like that.”

“Yeah?”

You’re smiling. “Yeah.”

You both might be the people with the worst timing in the entire world— you’re cursed by a demon villain from another dimension, and Steve is bleeding out while you’re both trapped inside the Upside Down, with no clue if you’ll be able to actually escape. Not to mention this is all happening in his ex's house. And yet you can’t help but laugh when Steve tries to reach for the back of your neck and fails miserably.

“I really want to kiss you,” he says, “but my abdomen still really hurts.”

“I have to do everything,” you tease, before closing the distance between you, your lips pressing against his with a sigh.

Steve’s lips are chapped, bloody, raw, and yours must be equally as bad, salty, open and bleeding raw. But despite everything the kiss is perfect, as imperfect and uncoordinated as it is; the way your lips fit together, the way Steve cradles your cheek, and how you hold the back of his neck while Bonnie Tyler plays in the background of it all. Now, more than anything, you feel hope.

When you break off the kiss, Steve is smiling.

“Let’s get out of here,” he says. And you just might.

#steve harrington #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington one shot #steve harington fic #steve x reader #stranger things fic #stranger things imagine #stranger things scenario #steve harrington scenario #st4 #joe keery #female reader #dyfam #mine #stranger things

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daftmooncretin · 5 months

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rip to rian johnson but star wars sequels would be way better if ben solo was just kinda cowardly and han solo coded so he defected from the jedi and went to be a fun swashbuckling anarchist space cowboy instead

and finn and poe have to find him and try to convince him to come back to the rebellion but hes afraid who he is and what he could become

also instead of luke trying to kill his nephew for NO REASON (so insanely out of character it boils my blood) he just realises after ben dips thats hes not cut out for teaching. and is living on a mandalorian colony as rebellion liason/ambassador with chewie and sometimes lando i guess (din djarin is there) he aids the rebellion (because of course he would fuck that plotline) but he wont stay on the rebel base because he doesnt like all the chosen one clout and mandalorians are very chill and mind their own business

han and leia are still together and play active parts in the rebellion because fuck that plotline too although they do disagree about the ben situation (leia is annoyed and han is understanding) poe and ben childhood friends and for what.

in this au, rey is raised in the empire and is a sith lord but she has doubts and isnt as abjectly disgusting as kylo ren because of course not. (appears slightly too interested in the rebellion when poe is captured and maybe??? possibly lets finn and poe escape but thats up for debate.) rey gets more evil over course of movies before turning to light for plot drama and a satisfying zuko arc.

force awakens timeline

prophecy that a new jedi will rise and take down the dark side. rey and sith lord (dk who but fuck snoke im writing him out) assume it is the missing ben solo (its finn and rey tho fr) and are intent on finding him. movie opens on rey being evil probably and capturing poe. also finn as a character actully needs no real changes hes great. and then next scene space pirate ben solo doing his thing (but without identity revealed so we dont know who he is yet he may go by kylo because funny)

instead of luke poe has a lead on missing almost-jedi before he dipped ben solo and is searching for him on leias orders.(rebellion also believe the prophecy is about him. but nuh uh) torture scene and escape scene doesnt need to change but show reys nuances and how lost she is.

in the interest of narrative poe and finn still crash on tatooine but finn manages to pull poe out of the crash. (finn still gets the jacket at some point because i say so) poe is too injured to fly so they seek out help and and meet ben solo who saves them from pirates or something idk. (but neither know who the other is)

finn and poe convince ben solo to be their pilot still thinking hes a random smuggler named kylo. they get along very well, especially finn and ben. rey by this point is tracking their whereabouts

they end up on that lightsaber planet and ben gets the weird darth vader nightmare and freaks out, (hes afraid of being evil or something idk) poe is getting suspicious now also finn feels the force and takes up the lightsaber. rey comes and finn trys to hold her off. finn get hurt and drops lightsaber. ben is forced to take it up and his identity is revealed as rebel reeforcements led by han and leia arrive and they see him fighting. rey and ben have a weird charged moment (yes i guess i am still making reylo a thing but its reyben now and its woke so shh) and in a dramatic desperate effort he manages to knock her lightsaber away with the force. poe crawls into a plane at somepoint and blows up reys ship. the rebels destroy the stormtroopers but rey captures finn and escapes in a stolen ship.

ben has a oh-shit-i-said-id-never-use-the-force-again related existential crisis which makes him freak out and leaves. a distraught finn-less poe calls him a coward. poe picks up the discarded lightsaber and the jackettm and sadly packs them up. leia tells him about the starkiller and poe volunteers to go on the starkiller and save finn. han and leia have a sweet moment and han decides to go with poe on the suicide mission, chewie goes too.(chewie arrived at somepoint i guess)

mid hostage situation finn blocks reys force attempt and shes shook up. he sees something in her (finn is a beautiful sweetheart) and he trys to appeal to her. she force chokes him and books it out of there. but it is clear she fears him a little. he escapes with mind tricks and runs into han poe and chewie on the deck. finnpoe moment fr. poe gives him his jacket back in order to get the keep it it looks good on you line.

meanwhile ben is back on his ship(i guess its the falcon?) and he thinks about finn and his mom and luke or something.. a dream maybe?? idk something emotional and motivational for his arc. and he goes to a box under the floor in his ship and pulls out a green lightsaber. he turns the ship around.

on the ship poe finn han and chewie are planting the bombs and escaping when they get stopped by stormtroopers ordered by rey. poe is about to be shot by a big droid thing when it is cut in half by ben wow big reveal hes here oooo ah. rey is shot in the shoulder by chewie and angrily orders more stormtroopers. they cant take them all. han sacrifices himself by blowing up the bridge. he tells finn and poe to find luke in the mandolorian colony ben is distraught him and han have an emotional goodbye he tells him to tell leia he’s sorry and that he loves him and he proud of him then he makes chewy get ben out of there and he blows himself up. leia senses it v sad rip man but he had to die to intensify plot drama

rey chases them onto the ice planet and another weird charged moment. mind link established??? this time ben is too angry and grieving though so its not a good match and she wounds him real bad all over hes v scarred now. poe shoots at rey and throws lightsaber at finn. he gets ben onto the ship and finn and rey have the big force awakens show down. finn uses the force v powerful all that jazz the good guys get away. on the ship finn mentions how he felt a connection with rey to poe and claims he sees good in her

movie ends with meeting luke on mandolore. ben is very traumatised wont really speak to finn or poe and avoiding luke. finn returns lukes lightsaber and rey has doubts movie over. movies ends with ominous rey ben mind link

final notes (on first movie and overarching rewrite plans)

finn

finn is the protagonist of this movie so it would be much more character heavy on him them the original. more in depth on his stormtrooper trauma, how he always chooses the people he loves over the cause and his reluctance to join the rebellion. his friendship with poe and the han/leia parallel’s especially. relationships with han and ben important for his character exposition and he plays a key role in supporting both rey and bens character progression. possesses the strong sense of mercy and kindness at the heart of the star wars franchise.

rey

rey is raised in the first empire and does not know anything different. when she meets finn who was able to rebel and escape from the same system she is trapped in she becomes plagued by doubts and projects all of her hatred and resentment onto finn to compensate, but it is clear she fears him. to escape from her doubts she fixates on finding and capturing ben solo imagining him to be a frightening and terrible adversary. however when she meets him they see eachothers minds, and she sees how plagued by doubt and fear he is, how he runs from everything and he sees her too. they connect and develop a strange mutual fascination/understanding. this is put askew by finns appearance at the end of the movie in defence of ben. reys fear of finn increases when she sees the true extent of his power. she fears and hates equally finns strength of character and easy goodness and by extension hates ben for his alliance with finn. she blames finn for “taking” ben from her.

ben solo

kylo ren is a disgusting blight on the star wars names so ben solo is being completely reclaimed by me into a different character because i fucking hate that stupid pretentious eboy. instead ben solo is an incredibly han solo coded character with a heart of gold and deep love and loyalty to his friends and family. his main weakness as a character in this rewrite is his fear and lack of self belief. ben is terrified of being a jedi and of his own power. he fears his own nature and was so afraid he would become his grandfather that he ran from the jedi altogether. ben solo is a runner that wont face his problems, he runs from the jedi and from his parents to avoid failing or becoming something terrible. finn and ben recognise the need to run in eachother (although important distinction finn runs because he doesn’t want to fight for a cause. and ben runs because hes afraid he will be the reason the cause fails) and ultimately encourage eachother to break the cycle and stand their ground (well finn motivated ben in this movie, finns not fixed yet.) Bens arc in these movies is about learning to live with his own nature and fighting for what he believes in despite his fear. also dealing with mommy issues (ben is kind of jealous of poe and leias relationship the son she wanted or something blah blah blah etc) and being a malewife to his murder girlfriend. his job is kind of to support and fight with finn and later rey and help them save the world

finnpoe (will be a gay couple)

their friendship will be front and centre in these movies because they represent duty vs personal loyalty. poe puts the cause above all else and values his own life and personal relationships little. finn on the other hand is disillusioned with establishment cause of stormtrooper trauma and wants to protect himself and others from it. poe is the first person that finn truly bonds with and loves. he puts poe above everything, including being a jedi and the rebellion. this leads to a lot of fighting and discord between finn and poe as finn doesn’t understand how important the rebellion is to poe and poe doesnt get why finn is trying to protect him from it. ultimately though poe teaches finn faith and belief and finn teaches poe to accept love and value himself. (also many hanleia parallels) the two of them are the harbingers of a new age. poe as future leader of the new republic and finn as the jedi messiah or whatever. in terms of romance, im thinking slowburn. baity first movie, kiss at the end of the second and established relationship by the halfway mark of the third.

also when rey eventually joins the light in the beginning she refuses to talk to ben (cause of romantic drama i havent thought of yet but centres around some sort or betrayal in the second movie) or finn (because hes her narrative foil and slow burn best friend forever) so her first friend is poe and she kind of follows him around in her first few months before she eventually bonds with finn 4eva. her poe shadowing has lots of cute friend moments where they fly together and he tries to talk her down about finn and the ben drama but also more importantly it foreshadows her leadership ability and tactical mind as she gives him advice and aids him with the rebellion behind the scenes (also leads to leia taking rey under her wing probably because poe is her surrogate son and mirror) which will eventually lead to her and poe leading the republic together because in my mind rey is a jedi but actively a member of republic government because ben can’t do politics and finn won’t but shes great at it so she’d be a perfect jedi liason and vice president to poe. meanwhile finn and ben lead the jedi. finn as a knight travelling across the galaxy and ben as a teacher. (luke is happy in retirement rn on mandalore but leia is still probably an advisor in the republic because retirement is definitely not for her) and everyone is happy the end. force ghost han solo is clapping.

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dolliestfairy · 10 months

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Dolliest 🎀

PART 2 Bo sinclair, Lester sinclair, Billy loomis & Bubba sawyer with Chubby!fem!reader who dress like a Doll.

ᜊ Request : You've probably already answered this but...would you be willing to do a sequel to Dolliest with Billy Lenz, Bo Sinclair, Lester Sinclair, Billy Loomis and Bubba Sawyer?

ᜊ A/N : sorry for not making the billy lenz part, i'm not really that bond with him and i'm scared i will gave you something that is far from his personality so i just done the rest :)

ᜊ Warnings : Pet names (princess, doll, ect), thinking of murdering someone & implied wanting to gouge someones eyes out, implied slit someones throat, killing, and maybe some misspelled words. this is a Poc friendly reader.

gifs aren't mine.

ཐིiཋྀ Bo Sinclair

• Omg look at you!.

• thinks you annoying at first, but as he knows you further he start to fall in love quick.

• although he would never admit it anyway.

• he really love how when you step into the room, the whole people would stare at you with such admiration, makes them think that they can have you when you're completely his.

• but if someone talks down or look down about you, you'd best believe they will be the next person who will exist in the News because of something terrible thing that has happen to them.

• what? do you think bo made the terrible things happen to them? of course ye- of course not.. why would you think like that? he only does that because he loves you..

• calls you "princess" or "babydoll".

• depends on his mood. if he's feeling more like a bad mood, he sometimes called you "princess" in a irritated tone.

• but we know this man has some major anger issues or some shit so yeah, not so surprised isnt?

• one of the things about this man is that, if you have a stretch marks, he loves to see you in a clothes who will show & compliment your stretch marks. he thinks you look really adorable, espesially if its pink!

• if you dont have stretchmarks, but if you do have a navel piercing, he also love to see your piercing gets it shows & compliments.

• but if you dont have both? its ok honey, this man will still love you regardless. (but he would rather die than admitting this)

ཐིiཋྀ Lester sinclair

• A goddess. thats what he thinks of you.

• man he fucking loves you & literally worship you so much sometimes you caught him staring at you for hours nonstop, had to slap or bump him or not he would for sure not stop staring you.

• calls you "honey" or "my goddess"

• really love how the pinks really compliment your features, and your bellies!!

• he fucking adores the stretch marks that traced over it. eveytime sometimes he likes to track his finger into it while showering you with compliments.

• and another thing about this man is that he would die to have cuddles with you.

• he really loev cuddles. after he had done his work, he goes straight to you to ask cuddles.

• if someone talks bad about you, he would gave them the nastiest death stare you'd ever imagine.

• he doesnt care what your skin is, pale, beige, brown, dark, whatever, you still beautiful, you're his chubby goddess, and he would -- of course, worship you to death.

ཐིiཋྀ Billy loomis

• really proud, no shame.

• just like bo, this guy loves when people think they can have you, when little did they know -- you're already off the market.

• he would rather die than admitting this, but he really love cuddling with you. your soft plush is literally much better than any pillow he ever bought.

• thats why he always lay his head on your belly. he really comfy there, dont push his head on the side or he will be grumpy.

• calls you "baby" or "doll"

• really love seeing you compliments yourself in your outfit omg! he fucking adores it, would die if that means he can see you compliment yourself again.

• he would not hold back to slit anyones throat who dare to talk down on you.

• no need to talk down actually, a nasty stare is enough to make him want to gouge out their eyes

• need Have to hold back this guy intentions before he really does gonna kill them all.

• and after he killed those shit? he goes back to you -- clinging over you, and cuddling you to death will not minding any fucks about those fuckfaces that he killed.

ཐིiཋྀ Bubba saywer

• this big boi..

• everytime you walk in on room he always cheered up, like everytime.

• no matter if he is sad, or angry or just having a bad mood.. if he sees you walking into the room he will be back to his cheered self.

• love the pinks omg! those pink nails and those vanilla strawberry scent perfume of yours..

• you're a very intoxicating woman to this guy, and he loove every single of it.

• and we all know his family are literally tease you both to death lmfao..

• they always called you both "love birds" and everytime one of his family sees you or bubba alone with no each other of you companying, they will start to annoy you with questions like

"where are the love of your life?"

"where are your birds-mate?"

but they do it all because they are just really curious lol and that family is actually -- hoping that you can stay together forever with him. running around in the house with your pink personality & outfit..

• with how your vanilla strawberry perfume scent filled the room..

•and with how your love to bubba, and bubba's love to you is filled in to the house.

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thelureking · 1 year

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I had this idea to make a list of all the games I played in 2022, half as a recommendation list, and half because I struggle to remember when I played what. I have a really bad time ranking stuff, so I'll just list them chronologically (or, as chronologically as I can remember).

Note: Sometimes I dont have a lot to say about a game, but that doesnt mean I didn't like it or that it isn't good.

So, with that being said:

1) Our Life: Beginnings and Always

This game has put visual novels on another level entirely. How must I go on knowing that I will never be treated like royalty by any other game like this did. Our Life tells the story of your friendship and/or romance with Cove Holden, your new neighbor. This Visual Novel remembers an insane amount of stuff you choose, and it can put you in the state of mentioning something you did as a kid that you completely forgot about. I actually really liked how you can go the entire game as just friends, or choose when your character develops romantic feelings. I cannot overstate how well made this entire thing is. Can't wait to play the DLCs and for the sequel to be released.

Absolute recommend.

2) Iron Lung

If you have a computer, you can play it. It is not an option.

Claustrophobic above all, this game captures the pure dread of the unknown, building tension and atmosphere as you travel through this unknown planet's red sea. Highly recommended.

3) An Outcry

Amazing game that I don't see enough people talking about. The first game that made me actually physically ill while playing an alternative route. I don't know what hit me the most, the subject matter or the type of person I played in that route, a person I know exists and maybe I've met, a person I hope I never become. I knew what the game was specifically referencing, but I found it good that it was able to trigger that response on someone who lives in an entirely different place, with different historical events, but with enough similarities that made the feeling of dread and disgust that much real. Its message is clear and loud as it should be, and one that I think maybe now more than ever needs to be heard. I cannot recommend this game enough.

4) Stillwater

Now this is a Visual Novel that I really liked and would have loved for it to be longer, but I love it as it is. It left me wanting more about the world and its characters, and I think that's a good thing. It feels unfair that this is the one I typed the least about, knowing how much I liked it. It's really worth the read/play.

5) The Caribbean Sail

Have you ever wanted to be a sailor or a pirate? Have you ever wanted to grab a ship, sail into unknown destinations, encounter supernatural phenomenons and watch as your fellow crew members die of disentry five seconds after leaving your first port? Because if so, I have the perfect game for you. It's inspired by the Oregon Trail game, and that's literally what the gameplay is like, except on the sea. Which was enough of a selling point for me.

6) Carrion

My child, it has every disease. Loved the concept when I saw the trailer, forgot I can actually buy games now, and then proceeded to do that. Being able to live my fantasies of being a flesh creature that destroys and eats everything in its path was a delight. The creature is my child and I love it very much.

We need more games that let you play as the monster, I'm serious.

7) The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante

This game is both my beloved and the thorn on my side. Who would have thought that in a game like this you would proceed to suffer through life? I said to myself as if I hadn't known what I was getting into. You'll experience loss, you'll struggle to make a name for yourself, your family will fall apart, and you may never kiss your best friend Tommas who gave you a totally platonic ring to commemorate your friendship because the game doesn't want you to.

Or you'll have a different experience than me on my first playthrough.

You follow the titular Sir Brante from the moment of his birth to his last breath, exploring the world he lives in, full of injustices that at times made me go "I do not care about the lots, give me a fucking gun so I can take you to the fucking Twins". There are many branches regarding life paths, the fate of your family and that of the entire city you live in. But don't worry about it now, keep looking at those toy soldiers at the store as a little kid, I'm sure nothing will happen in the future.

8) Princess Maker 2 Refine

And apparently I didn't get enough of walking a kid through life.

Who looks at a game about raising a little girl by managing her monthly schedule and balancing her stats, health and money and says "yes, this is the game I'll play to destress"?

I do that. Don't ask why.

I have only reached two endings, in one my beautiful daughter became the royal painter, her art held as the most beautiful and inspiring in the entire world. In another, my girl made a name for herself by exploring the lands surrounding the kingdom, so fast on her feet nobody could even scratch her; she married a dragon prince and became the teacher of her own fighting school.

And even with all of that, her goddess mother was not happy.

So yes, this is the "divorced dad who got custody" experience.

9) Planescape: Torment

What can change the nature of a man? That is a question posed by one Ravel Puzzlewell, night hag of the Gray Wastes. It is one of the many questions that this game asks, intertwined by the many philosophies it presents. Planescape Torment does not stick to one question, it asks many, and it lets you answer.

It is a beautifully written game, one of the best I have ever read. There is one moment that I do not wish to spoil, but it still sticks to my head months after I experienced it. As a writer, I found myself fascinated by how a certain event was told, all because of the way it was presented.

It feels like an injustice to not talk in length about Planescape: Torment, but I seriously don't want to spoil anyone who hasn't played it yet. A blind experience is fully worth it. All you need to know is that this is the game that made me post for the first time here, two dumb memes for myself and one short analysis that sometimes reminds me that yes, people can interact with it. Shameless link to it here

10) Growing my Grandpa!

If I had to describe this game without saying too much, I would say it's "heartwarming horror". Two words that don't usually go together, but that they perfectly fit here. The story is, like the title says, about growing your grandpa, more like helping a girl grow her grandpa, but still. Strangely sweet and unnerving, I was tense the entire time, and even when I had to replay it to get the second ending (this was entirely my fault, since I could have gotten it way easier) that tension never left.

11) FAITH: The Unholy Trinity

I don't remember how I found out about this game, but I remember waiting patiently for it to get a steam release so I could buy it and play its three chapters all together. The day finally came, and all that waiting was worth it.

The gameplay is simple, yet the developers found a way to have me both crying in fear and frothing by the mouth out of anger every time I saw the game over screen (affectionately). In terms of difficulty, I would say the game is easy until it isn't, looking at you Chapter 2 and 3 Final Bosses, you bastards. Then again, I saw people say they struggled in places I didn't, so I would say it depends on the player.

The story is so interesting and it's still marinating in my brain please I need people to talk about how the prologue of chapter 2 and the one note in chapter 3 relate please. The cutscenes are also so well done, and I had to restrain myself from using one as a second picture because I didn't want to spoil any of them.

All in all, a must play, fully recommend it.

And remember:

GARY LOVES YOU

12) Inmortal Mantis

This is a tricky one. On one hand, the game starts off by basically spelling out every action you have to do, and suddenly it goes full on "fuck around and find out" mode. On the other, the game implements some interesting mechanics that I would love to see developed on a longer game, but I am not going to put the length against it while knowing how hard it is to make a game. And maybe being short plays in its favor.

13) Who's Lila?

This game is my King in Yellow. I cannot stop thinking about it. I finished it with all endings and achievements in a day, and it wont leave me alone. It is always there, forever crawling at the back of my head, stretching itself over my brain and weaving my thoughts into a spiral as easily as a spider weaves its thread. It made itself a home in my mind and I won't kick it out any time soon. I played it because the concept of controlling a character's face in place of a dialogue wheel was interesting, and the story and the way it's presented (hand in hand with the gameplay) lured me deeper and deeper. I cannot even describe it without giving it the praise it deserves. It takes full advantage of its medium. Playing this game is an experience that I can't recommend enough, and I'm surprised it hasn't gotten the recognition it deserves.

14) Someone stole MY LUNCH!

This visual novel is pure fun. The humor is so good I found myself reading the entire thing out loud while wheezing. I actually found out recently that it's made by the same people that made Stillwater, which, looking at it now I should have known. It's good and I'm not still over not seeing that one joke coming; well played.

15) MILK INSIDE OF A BAG OF MILK INSIDE OF A BAG OF MILK INSIDE OF A BAG OF MILK INSIDE OF A BAG OF-

... INSIDE A BAG OF MILK is a short visual novel about a girl going to the grocery to buy milk, and the challenge this seemingly small action can be. It is your responsibility to help her through this.

The steam page description perfectly summarizes it: "This is an artistic manipulation with word and form, only then - a game."

#already reblogged with three more games!#game recommendations #our life beginnings & always #iron lung #an outcry #stillwater visual novel #the caribbean sail game #carrion game #the life and suffering of sir brante #princess maker 2 #planescape torment #growing my grandpa #faith the unholy trinity #inmortal mantis #who's lila #whos lila #someone stole my lunch visual novel #milk inside a bag of milk inside a bag of milk #lilium post

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ganondoodle · 11 months

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this isnt as long as before but i just cannot stop thinking about this, why i dislike story and lore boils down to these main point

--the ending feels unsatisfying as hell even if i ignore everything i dont like about how the game treated zelda and ganondorf, the ending itself just feels, despite being presented as super epic an touching, incredibly empty to me and part of it is that it feels like an unearned return to status quo of course i didnt think zelda would stay a dragon and i actually wanted to help her, which is why i kept trying to hunt down impa since she said shes gonna search for a way for us to help zelda, bc i wanted to!! i was eager to help her!

i fully hoped and kinda expected that thered either be some kind of dragon dungeon (think, the water dragon from okami) tho that would be difficult since you can get items from her so i ended up thinking before going into the end thered be a mission with impa (or at least given to you from her) where she found answers in ancient scripts (that she told you she would look through) and that you need to find a special lil thing that will help zelda undragonfy, like some sort of ultra secret forbidden enigma stone able to reverse dragon transformations kinda deal (golden opportunity to make you go and talk to the yiga bc they might know or even own some ancient texts) that youd keep in your inventory until the very end and after you kill dragondorf (pretty mortal for becoming an immortal dragon huh) you take it out and use it, undragonfying zelda and ending in a similar epic falling and paralel to the beginning way

... and instead impa stays in the house and only has a few repeating dialog boxes and does nothing and you cant do anything bc in the end you just get randomly teleported (and stripped of your clothing AGAIN) into some weird ethereal plane somehow?? with the ghost of long ass dead sonia and apparently not as gone as i thought rauru (seriously i felt sad when he went poof at the end of the tutorial but i guess i shouldnt have) awkwardly blasting dragon zelda with some magic tm and its all reversed no problem (heck me for caring i guess) turns out helping her was killing an evil guy we never really knew and mineru just kinda says lol its bc time and light magic i guess lol as an explanation

like i really wanted to go and help zelda! i was motivated to do it and spent HOURS trying to find impa again but i wasnt allowed to do anything bc zelda gets saved by some deus ex machina bs in the end anyway, what a fool i was, of course killing the evil guy is the solution to everything >:( (and no i dont care if its meant as in uwu sonia and rauru wanted to help one last time uwu bc it doesnt change how unsatisfying it was to watch it all just kinda happen)

--point two is just how much totk feels like its trying to REPLACE botw instead of being a sequel, its not building on anything of it its ripping out the fundation and building its own thing in its place, like i was so excited to see what happened to the titans, and all the sheikah tech what they mabe had done in all that time now that theres a tech enthusiastic girl as the head of the monarchy, maybe even find out more about them and instead its just all ... gone with not explanation? theres isnt even a LAME explanation, its just gone?? you never find out what the ancient energy actually was, and why there were concentrations of it in the regions with the ancient furnace (well heck it didnt even have anything to do with ganondorf actualyl bc that would have been too interesting) bc that was so intrigueing?? like yeah where DID it come from and why is it there ?? and oh suddendly hey look theres an even MORE ancient and even MORE advanced civilization thats way COOLER and BETTER than the ancient sheikah now, they also built stuff everywhere and have been here ALL ALONG cant you see its everywhere!! and its the only thing everyone cares about all of the sudden, all evdidence of the ancient sheikah tech was scraped of the earth so there literally only being some guardian parts on top of the hateno lab feels like an oversight now bc everything lese was to thourohgly wiped of the map- for no reason even?? like im totalls fine with it being useless and not working anymore but .... why remove it like it was wiped from history?? and then they have the gall to mention the happenings of botw like, twice in the entire game but still just give you the most basic summary of it mentioned on a sidenote with again not even a hint what happened to all of it

wouldnt there have been the golden opportunity to use it to access the new parts and map points that changed?? like a shrine thats fallen into the underground, an access to caves and the underground in the broken and collapsed elevator tube of a sheikah srhine?? maybe even a broken interior of an old shrine, like the room you get put into with the puzzle and where the monk once were broken and half overgrown in the udnerground? some left over construction site where you can see oh thats how the ancient sheikah got all that tech underground, bc they all had access to it and built it there to then rise up when its needed? maybe even making use of the old sonau sites since they frequnetly built their srhines within those ruins?? that the ancient sheikah found em and put the ruins to use? to research it and built their own stuff from it? it wouldnt have to have any focus, literally just part of the enviroment even

really everything totk does is like -forget botw ever happend, look how much cooler and better i am, who cares about sheikah stuff sonau are the new cool guys that came out of nowhere but now apparently have been everywhere all along actually-

i LOVE botw and with it feeling much more like its attempting to replace botw instead of building its story and world further every reference to botw i found felt like a slap in the face instead, oh look where the shrine of life used to be isnt even a hint left of sheikah tech somehow, and also right under it is the lake of healing filled with sonau structure bc ACTUALLY they were here FIRST bc they are so cool omg you guys

dare i say it feel a little like they wanted to make an entirely different version of botw basically, but wanted to reuse the map and models so they just said yeah uhhhh its totally a sequel yeah yeha that makes sense, its not erasing botw and doing essentiall the same thing again but bigger cooler and better (tm) its just uuh a ...sequel ye.

#ganondoodles talks #totk spoilers #totk #sorry i got longer again #also what was calamtiy ganon then #if it was ganondorf trying to resurrect himself outside of the seal then ... wouldnt he ... mention it or something or anyoone no?#also dont like how all the teasers made it seem like there was soem great mystery as to how gan got down there-#.. actually how DID he get down there thats a pretty weird place to go to war too #-aynway and WHO did this to him omg he looks in pain maybe theres more to it alll omg #and then its just ... yeah cool guy tm sealed him #oh ... ok #why would you tease us with a good time then bring stale chips and an empty beer can you have brought with you three times before already #like i get we love to read more into stuff that isnt there #but they were oh so vageu with the teasers and stuff we got to see when its all just #the same schlok but even more tasteless than before

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aroacedindjarin · 1 year

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I know so many people have said this already and in much more coherent ways than I can but the way luke was depicted in tbobf (and im not just talking about the uncanny valley cgi… why did they not just recast him orz) makes me so frustrated even now. Especially now. Maybe i’m just a delusional dinluker but i really really believe that luke skywalker needed to be in the mandalorian season3.

I cannot believe luke skywalker would make grogu choose between his dad and becoming a jedi. It is just so explicitly ooc for him. I’m reading the destiny path comic right now and there are so many pages that show luke struggling with the worry that he can’t be a Jedi because he can’t let go of his attachments to his friends. and i know this is a core theme of luke as a character, it’s not new, but the comic is just so explicit about it and goes into depth in a way that it doesn’t have time to explore on screen

It explores luke’s worry about disappointing yoda when he left dagobah to go help leia and han in cloud city, and how he feels about ben and yoda refusing to talk to him anymore or help him through the force because he didn’t make his jedi training a priority above everything and everyone else, like a Selfless Jedi should. and grogu goes through the literal exact same thing. and luke reacts in the exact same way yoda and ben did to him?

In the comic, the radio silence from his teachers eats at him so badly and adds to the struggle he’s going through after finding out Vader is his father and losing his hand. He feels abandoned and afraid and, even though these feelings lead him to realise he can make his own way as a jedi, I just don’t think he’d inflict the same thing on grogu. Even if i were to look at it from a perspective of luke being forced to make his own way without his teachers made him a stronger jedi - so maybe he’s doing the same for grogu?

After all, I know grogu is such a young child so I also understand the series tries to come at it from the angle of respecting a child’s wants and needs, not forcing him to commit to training if he doesn’t want to. But I just don’t understand why luke couldn’t join grogu every now and then. Teach him some jedi stuff on the weekends. They make it seem like luke has nothing better to do anyways, he’s got droids building his school for him and seems to spend his days entirely with grogu anyway. If he went back to tatooine with grogu at the end of tbobf, i just think there would have been so much to explore between luke and literally any of the characters. din and boba specifically of course but if that led to luke in mando s3 there could’ve been so much potential.

Perhaps they just needed a reason for a big emotional scene for grogu to choose his path and his destiny. Perhaps they couldn’t put luke skywalker in the show too much for fear of throwing off the sequels. There’s the argument that luke already had his screen time and, trust me, I also hate the re-usual of existing characters to the point where they’re wringed out of any substance and have been so fleshed-out and developed it’s almost grotesque to force them to stay in the show any longer. but star wars doesnt have a problem with that for so many other characters anyway.

I just wanted to see grogu growing up to be both a Mandalorian and a Jedi. It would’ve been so perfect with the Mand’alor Din storyline too. Grogu, the son of the Ruler of Mandalore and the student of the strongest Jedi in the galaxy, the start of a new generation and so much foundation to explore between Mandalorians and Jedi!!!!!!!

#i was literally just ranting about this to my beloved mutual but i need this on my blog too.#hinderr if ur reading this hi #luke skywalker #dinluke #the mandalorian #star wars #long post

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rowiewritesstuff · 3 months

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I would love a sequel to the sparkmate tfp soundwave thing you did maybe about how life is on the Nemesis, unless he doesnt take you back there, about how its tried to keep secret and what happens when and how the autobots find out, like maybe when a fight is happening and you followed because why miko why, and then at some point soundwave picks you up or shields you from a boulder or something and you thought no one noticed or something idk im rambling at this point. Thank you.

Soundwave Soulmate AU 2

The Autobots commed the Decepticon ship many times to ensure your safety. While they knew you weren’t a traitor, they still refused to trust the Decepticons with you. You assured them that you were safe and in the capable hands of your soulmate.

It was, however, uncomfortable at times. You loved your old friends but you felt like you had to pick between one or the other. It was beginning to make your relationship with Soundwave tense. He didn’t understand why you had to work- he believed he could provide anything you needed.

Everytime you left, he felt scared. What if he lost you like he did his minicons? He loved you, and you just didn’t understand.

Soundwave would never understand how out of place you felt among the Decepticons. They obviously treated you as lesser. Of course Soundwave would assault them if he ever heard, so they kept their hatred quiet.

Other than that, it was lonely to be on a ship with no one to truly talk to. Of course Soundwave was there, but he didn’t really talk. He only used voice clippings from others.

When you went to work, you could REALLY make a connection to others. It made you happy, and Soundwave, having lost the way he’s lost, couldn’t compromise with you.

So, very sadly, you decided to go back to the Autobots. Soundwave was sad, and the Nemesis didn’t feel the same. He would still write notes to you on your skin, hoping for you to come back.

#soulmate au #soundwave #tfp #transformers #transformers soulmate au #tfp soundwave #tfp soundwave soulmate #soulmate #soulmates #transformers prime

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gale-gentlepenguin · 9 months

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Gale Reviews: Miraculous: Ladybug & Chat Noir. The Movie

Welp I finally got the miraculous Movie so now I get to review it.

So For this review, I plan viewing this SOLELY on the movie. I will not be judging it completely based on the show. This is Zag's take. (The view on who did it better will be for another Post)

(Thanks @knightsweeties for the picture)

How I will be reviewing it.

Plot

Characters

Lesson

Animation

Music (Because yes, this is a Musical and should be judged)

Final Thoughts.

________________________________________________________

Plot

So its pretty simple. A villain named Hawkmoth appears that wants to use the power of the butterfly miraculous to get the two miraculous he needs to attain his goal. But two heroes will rise in order to fight him, Ladybug and Chat noir. We will see another take on the show that inspired the movie. A new world for Ladybug and Chat noir.

Overall, this movie's plot is pretty generic, its not going to be winning anything for originality. BUT it sticks to the script and does everything it needs to do to set up Ladybug and Chat noir's respective character arcs and setting up one heck of a final confrontation with hawkmoth. The emotional drama is there and mostly hits the points it needs to. And while not everything got a laugh out of me, some things did.

It also ties up a good amount of loose ends while leaving Sequel bait.

For the most part. 7/10 for non-fans

9/10 for fans.

Its engaging enough and does what it needs to do.

______________________________________________________________

Characters:

Marinette: She is likable and you do enjoy seeing her on screen when she starts getting confident. I do think the pacing of the movie does impact her a bit, but its never to the point where its unbelievable. Also as Ladybug, her banter with Chat noir is top notch. There is some really good chemistry there. That being said, I find it harder to believe that she fell in love with Adrien over chat noir. But its a nit pick.

Adrien: I admit it took a bit for me to actually like this adrien, but I think thats intentional. Chat noir starts out arrogant and annoying, while Adrien starts shut off and quiet. He is a boy mourning the loss of his mother and his father is so distant that he seems gone to. But then he meets Ladybug, he sees this girl and how incredible she is. He finds someone he can relate to and his heart opens. Its beautiful seeing him fall in love with her and pull out all the stops opening up to her. He even gets to confront his father. Its quite a biting scene. I must say this maybe my favorite iteration of Adrien. (Careless whisper is the only song he listens to.) I do wish he was in it a bit more as adrien, but its not that bad.

Gabriel: I dont know how they did it, but they managed to make Gabriel sympathetic. Showing the lengths he is going, how lost he is, the survivor's guilt he has. He blames himself and wants to bring his family back together again. And Hawkmoth they made wacky and yet TERRIFYING. And we see this especially in the finale and the moment we think he wins, he sees his son. He sees it was Adrien, the one thing left in his life that he wants to protect him. This is a gabriel that deserves some sympathy but doesnt shy away from the fact he committed crimes.

Alya and Nino: Now they are both not in this as much as the actual show, but they are great supports and some of the changes done to both of them are wonderful. Alya being supportive of Marinette, Nino being such a bro to adrien while also simping for Alya (Chef's kiss). I do wish Nino and Adrien's meeting but their friendship is good.

Chloé: This chloé is exactly what she needs to be. A bully character but never so excessive that it detracts from the plot. She is spoiled and she is probably the funniest character. (For those that know the show, think Season 1 chloé with a dash of season 2) I think they got a different english VA for her, and honestly it works.

Plagg and Tikki: I found Plagg a bit annoying with the fart jokes, but outside of that he is pretty similar to his canon counterpart. Tikki on the other hand SHINES in this movie. This is what I wanted from Tikki, motivational, curious, fun loving. this is what I picture with the kwami of Creativity.

Fu: He is the mysterious old man character. He plays it well, though he is hardly in the movie. But at least he actually shows up for Ladybug and Chat noir almost right away, instead of just hiding.

The other characters play their roles and there are some funny bits, the akumatized villains are fun and play their role. Lady Magician and the Mime are both phenomenal.

Also the Gargoyle, I feel so bad for him. He wins the award for most Tragic akumatization.

Overall Solid 8.5/10

I do wish we got more Alya and Nino, and less fart jokes from Plagg

____________________________________________________________

Lesson

There are 3 lessons to take away from this movie.

The first one "Stronger together"

Having help and working with those around us can help us grow, we have to be willing to let others in and help us be our best selves.

The second is "Believe in yourself"

Marinette's main character arc is coming to terms with what she can do and finding the inner strength that she always had, even without powers. (Done better than a chunk of films these days)

The Third lesson, "Power of Love"

It was love that helped stop Hawkmoth, it was love that helped chat noir and ladybug overcome their weaknesses and fix paris. It was even love that helped them at the very end.

That being said... the execution on all of the lessons was not perfect, the first one sort of fell off by the end, but the second one and third lesson still applied. There could be some work but I still enjoyed it.

6/10

___________________________________________________________

Animation:

The Animation looks great, the character designs look great, and while I was originally iffy on them, after seeing it I must say the designs work.

The Lighting in itself if Heavenly to say the least. Whoever was in charge of the lighting needs to be given a deep tissue massage and a raise.

It does feel a bit Disney for my personal taste but I cant complain with how crisp the fights look. Great Choreography and it really sells the intensity of the scenes. The details and call backs, the foreshadowing.

Its solid animation, I would say that it is missing a few bits to really make it stand out, some sort of Stylization. But outside of that. Its good.

The scenes that they want to focus on look great, the imagination bits are grandiose. There was care put into this and not just a cheap cash grab.

9/10

_______________________________________________________

The Music

This movie is a musical, very disney-sque.

And as a courteous, I listened to the songs in French and english. I know the english VA's arent the one's singing. And I have to say, it feels SO WEIRD for Marinette in the english dub. But Its not that bad. I think the French one is just more consistent sounding. But english and french both sound fine. Also Chat noir's VA isnt singing, but I think the singing voice for him fits him a bit closer but the french is still the best. "My Lady" is a great song for Chat noir.

The songs are fine, nothing that really blew me away, but they were fun. "I believed in me" fits Marinette well as an opening song.

Tikki's rapping in english is surprisingly decent. But SO WEIRD.

But Gabriel's singing voice, THAT through me off.

Villain song 101. Love it in the english dub. "Chaos Reigns"

But the song "Stronger together." That hit me. The duet in both iterations are great.

The Background music always seems to fit the mood... Except Careless whisper (But that was always used in amusing ways). The BG should be praised

7.5/10

_____________________________________________________________

Final Thoughts

Overall, if I had to rate it objectively, without knowing the show or series. 7/10. Nothing ground breaking but its a good film in itself, its entertaining and fun, and it has some good moments. Pacing is a bit all over but it’s under 2 hours so it’s more of a pick your battles thing

If I had to rate this as the Show fan that I am and my personal enjoyment.

8/10

It does nearly everything I wanted it to do, and added to flair and changes.

Now not everything is perfect, since limited time to tell a story. But its coherent and cuts some of the bloat that was a problem in the OG series. Now some things I enjoyed were also cut though.

I like how it isnt a 1 for 1, it changes some things and gives a fresh tale.

Now which one is better I will address in another post

#gale reviews #miraculous movie spoilers #miraculous movie #miraculous: Ladybug & Chat noir

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myangelhaven · 10 months

Text

This is my recommendations of SUNGHOON fics! It will be updated once in a while for new stories I have read. Hopefully the links work (lemme know if it doesnt)

Credits to the authors!! All informations written are taken from the authors' post and has not been modified. Reminder that some fics are NOT for minors, so please read the key and avoid 18+ contents.

HAPPY READING!!

KEY:

[❀]: fluff [𖤓]: angst [☄]: sad [☾]:smut [⟡]:smau [✮]: my favs

˖⁺‧₊˚ ˚₊‧⁺˖✮-----------SUNGHOON-----------✮˖⁺‧₊˚ ˚₊‧⁺˖

ONESHOT

Little secret by @luvyjwz [☾][fwb][cheating] 0.4k

you face a close call with your little secret, sunghoon.

They told me to by @soobnny [❀][bff2l][drunk confessions] 1.7k

sunghoon has a lot of things he wants to say to you, and it takes a couple drinks and a messy trip back home to finally say them

Two dim stars by @pookhee [❀][𖤓][☄][heartbreak][cheating][hurt/comfort] 1.8k NEW

in which you caught your boyfriend cheating and you meet a new star, one that shines brighter than the rest

Two is better than one by @jaeyunsz [☾][w/ jay]4.6k

your fuck buddy sunghoon has a hot roommate called jay so he might have offered jay to have a threesome with you.

Rain by @minghaoyoudoin [❀][☾][✮][e2l] 9.7k

Unlikely Likelihood of falling in love by @soobnny [❀][𖤓][✮][e2l][fakedating au] 14.5k

march was a strange month. for one, you’d manage to string yourself into fake dating the one person you hated in the campus - park sunghoon

SERIES

Behind the scenes by @liliansun [❀][𖤓][⟡][s2e][e2f][f2l][pining] 24 parts

Sunghoon was at the top of his game, staring in every major romance drama to hit the big screen. When he met you, he expected to watch you swoon over him like his previous co-stars, but you’re not so impressed when meeting in person. Modeling is looking at lot better than acting right about..now. ACTION!

The Jock by @jongseongsnudes [❀][brothers bff2l][the ending 😭][there's a soon-to-be sequel] 26.9k (5 parts)

“Everyone knows Park Sunghoon as the handsome, charming jock that all the girls want to be with and all the guys want to be. You however, know him as your brother’s cocky best friend who always finds ways to annoy you so how you end up pinned on the bed by him one night… is quite the story.”

Twitch rivals by @soobnny [❀][𖤓][⟡][✮][exes2lovers][e2l] 38 parts

nothing is worse than getting paired up with a stranger for twitch rivals 2022, except maybe being matched with your very competitive ex boyfriend park sunghoon.

Bed of lies by @svnoohe4rts [𖤓][☾][✮][fakedating au] 40k (4 parts)

to prove to his best friend that he could get any girl he wants, park sunghoon makes a bet. within the next 30 days, he has to make the next girl that walks into the room fall in love with him. sunghoon, however, hadn’t anticipated the feelings he would gain during those 30 days.

Stupid cupid by @yeongwonie [❀][𖤓][⟡][✮][e2l][slowburn] 50 parts

alone on valentine’s day, you decide to sign up for the student council’s fundraiser: a matchmaking survey, hoping to at least get a few laughs out of the whole ordeal. little do you know, park sunghoon (your archenemy since junior high) has the same idea. but it’s fine! your student body president, kim sunoo, would never tamper with the matching system, right?

Sorry, I'm am anti-romantic by @sankyeom [❀][⟡][s2l][fakedating au] 40 parts

after years of casual dating and never committing to relationships, your friends challenge you to fall in love. which is why you seek out park sunghoon, the campus heartbreaker, to pretend to break your heart. little do you know: his reputation is a complete lie.

My (accidental) demon roommate by @ddeonuism [❀][𖤓][⟡][✮][supernatural au] 61 parts

Sunghoon wasn’t expecting to be sent to the mortal world by his “father”, much less being forced into attending college (he’s a demon! why would he need to?!) and being accidentally summoned by a clueless human almost had him marching straight into Hell to have a word with its ruler. Only he couldn’t, because he was already bound to you by a fucking paper-cut sealing your contract which means he can’t just leave the mortal world without taking something of yours in return.

⠄･ ⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･ ⠄more to come!⠄･ ⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･ ⠄

☆------------------enha masterlist------------------☆

#enha masterlist #sunghoon x reader #enha recs #sunghoon recs

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spaceyaemonds · 1 year

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so, after reading “starry eyes sparkling up my darkest night”, i have a question.

if aemond’s wife asked him to take her from behind (not the first time, but further down the line) would he think it has to do with the scar? would he maybe be a bit upset and feel a bit insecure?

if he did and she sensed this, would she explain to him that she was just curious about how it would feel, and that it has nothing to do with the scar?

oooooh!!! this is a really really good question!!

so i actually touch a bit on this in the sequel for starry eyes that i have been working on, but i dont go into heavy detail so i will here!

so before she was with aemond, she was very very sheltered by her family and truly believed sex was only a means to get an heir. she had no idea it was something she could also experience pleasure from. so after she learned this, she was eager to try everything to see what she likes and doesnt like, ya know? and aemond, being the good and adoring husband is very eager to please her, so he tries everything she wants to try.

but when she bring up how she helaena told her that aegon takes her from behind, and she was wondering if they could try it, aemond takes it to heart. he knows it doesnt have anything to do with his scar, but when she brings it up all he can think about was the whispers around court of how his future wife would only be able to stomach having sex with him if he took her from behind, because of his eye.

he always wants to please his lady and give her everything she wants, but when he hesitates she knows something is wrong. in my mind they are a couple who are really good at communicating with one another, but aemond still needs coaxing into telling her what's wrong in that moment. she feels terrible once he tells her whats wrong, because that was never what she intended, and he tells her he knows this, but sometimes he cant help how he feels about his scar.

they have a really long talk about it and then he tells her that he would love to do that with her, but he'd rather look upon her face that night.

#i'd be happy to do a whole one shot on this #if that is something you guys would like to see #just let me know!#aemond x reader #aemond smut #aemond targaryen x reader #hotd smut #hotd x reader

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czenzo · 7 months

Text

Pretty Boy

[ao3] Skullyle Internet Friends Series: [1 – Pretty Boy] [2 – Missed Call]

summary:

[Skull] any updates on Pretty Boy? [Joan] I told you to stop calling him that

Lucy, a barista, finds herself drawn to the regular with long legs and perfect hair. Her internet friend – a snarky guy only known by the nickname Skull – finds her silly little crush hilarious (and may be a little bit jealous).

words: 2085 rating: T

notes: I have genuinely never considered Skullyle before, but I scrolled by this post by @lucy-lockwood and immediately opened Scrivener. I've also never seen Skull as anything but a cat in modern AUs before, but the thought of him being Lucy's internet friend with far too much time on his hands and the burning desire to blow up Lucy's phone with his abundance of sarcastic notifications was too much for me to resist

edit: now with a sequel!

Lucy’s phone buzzed, and she knew who it was before she picked it up.

[Skull] any updates on Pretty Boy?

[Joan] I told you to stop calling him that

[Skull] + i never agreed [Skull] ur avoiding the question.

She glanced up at her surroundings. They were in the lull between the morning and lunch rush; the only occupants besides herself and Holly were the bespectacled boy tapping away at his laptop in the corner, and the man with the oddly impressive moustache sipping tea by the window. There was nothing or no one stopping her from texting back, which wasn’t necessarily a good thing.

[Joan] I haven’t seen him today. there’s nothing to update you on

[Skull] bullshit [Skull] doesnt need 2 b a concrete physical update [Skull] ik u have already spent a minimum of 2 hours thinking abt him this morning [Skull] his hair. his lanky fucking legs. [Skull] penny for ur sickeningly sappy thoughts ma’am

[Joan] why are you concerning yourself with my thoughts about him [Joan] jealous much?

It took a strange amount of time for a reply to come through.

[Skull] HAHAHAHA [Skull] HAHAHAHAHAHAHA [Skull] that was so funny! real knee slapper!! have u considered ditching the coffee + pursuing comedy

[Joan] maybe I will. [Joan] wait shit hold on he’s just come in

She shoved her phone in her apron and immediately it began buzzing with message notifications, each one presumably more sarcastic than the last. Lucy was far too distracted to care; Lockwood had just walked in.

Lockwood. First name unknown, amount of patterned ties owned unknown (but it was at least twelve), regular orderer of one Earl Grey tea with milk and a ginger biscuit to go. He normally showed up during the morning rush which never left Lucy any time to talk to him outside of the standard cash register exchange, but today was different – he was running late. How interesting, Lucy thought, as she ignored her phone buzzing for the hundredth time. She ought to put it on silent.

“Morning,” Lockwood said as he approached the counter. “One Earl—”

“Grey tea with milk, ooh, and a ginger biscuit too, please?” Lucy said without fully intending to. She froze. Lockwood stared for an excruciating moment until the corner of his mouth quirked up.

“Do I really order that every time?”

“Pretty much every morning, yes.” She occupied herself with entering the order in the till, if only to avoid having to make eye contact. “Will that be everything?”

Of course, it was, and of course, the name for the cup was Lockwood, though Lucy only asked him to not seem like a complete creep with her memory.

Lockwood idled by the counter, scrolling through his phone as Lucy went to work putting his order together. Holly was in the back. The bespectacled kid didn’t make a noise, aside from the clacking of his keyboard. The moustached man quietly sipped his tea. It almost felt as if she and Lockwood were alone, and Lucy wasn’t sure how that made her feel.

She steeled her nerves to say something new. Now or never. “Running late today, are we?”

“I was, up until a few minutes ago. My morning meeting’s been cancelled, so I’m now free until eleven, which is certainly an odd feeling.”

Morning meeting? Lucy thought he was around her age – early twenties – and here she was, working a 9–5 making coffee, while he probably made double her wage in some swanky office. How lovely to think about.

“Yet you still came for your tea and biscuit.”

“Of course. I can barely function without it. Thank you,” he said as she slid his order towards him. He picked it up, hesitated, and looked around the room. When his eyes fell on the bespectacled boy, his face lit up.

“George! I didn’t realise you’d be here.” He strode over to the corner table and made himself comfortable opposite the boy and his laptop. Lucy watched them for a moment or two before realising she probably looked incredibly creepy again, and opted instead to lean against the counter and make sure Skull hadn’t collapsed in her absence.

Thirty-two unread messages. Half of them described Lucy batting her eyes and pouting her lips while Pretty Boy smouldered and sipped his ‘stupidly pretentious earl grey tea, who even fucking drinks that? just drink bog standard english breakfast like any normal self respecting brit’. The other half consisted of incoherent babbling which probably only made sense to Skull himself.

[Joan] you really missed me in those ten minutes I was gone, didn’t you?

[Skull] u flatter urself joanie [Skull] those 10 mins were the best of my entire life actually [Skull] peaceful bliss. pure unadulterated zen [Skull] so did u just run through ur normal coffee shop script like a coward or did u actually make a move

[Joan] I pointed out that he was running late, and he said a cancellation had changed his morning schedule

[Skull] god damn its straight from a film. so romantic!! [Skull] if u cant tell im currently blushing + swinging my feet back n forth in the air [Skull] eee tell me MORE!!

[Joan] I’m immune to your sarcasm. I diverted from my usual script! that’s better than nothing

[Skull] u talked about his morning. schedule. talk of google calendar will not segue into sloppy making out

[Joan] don’t say that. don’t be gross.

[Skull] it comes naturally 2 me [Skull] just like being romantically incompetent comes naturally 2 u

[Joan] he’s still here. I could still say something else

[Skull] rip the coffee machine from its fixings + do a back handspring off the counter, thatll 100% get his attention [Skull] try screeching like a banshee too. rlly turns a guy on

[Joan] noted. thank you for your wisdom.

[Skull] anytime B)

Across the room, Lockwood was talking animatedly to George, who listened yet continued typing. Lucy checked her watch: half past ten. Thirty minutes until Lockwood was busy again. She was so focused on working out what to do to catch his attention and make an impression that when Holly approached from behind with a soft hey, Lucy practically shot ten feet into the air.

“Hol,” she said, one hand on her chest. She’d almost flung her phone into the glass display case.

“Ooh, I’m so sorry. Didn’t mean to frighten you!” Holly beamed. Her usual cheer could never be dampened by the chaotic mornings on the job. “What’s gotten you so distrac— ah. He seems rather relaxed for someone running late, doesn’t he?”

“Schedule change,” Lucy murmured. “Cancelled meeting.”

“Lucky him. What I wouldn’t give for the morning rush to be cancelled for a day.” Holly nodded to the phone in Lucy’s hand. It buzzed once, as if reminding her it was still there. “Skull boy?”

Lucy nodded. She and Skull had been friends – acquaintances, as he often corrected – for nearly half a year. They’d frequented the same paranormal forums, and after finding themselves in an intense debate over whether ghosts would be able to talk coherently and being berated by mods for spamming the entire place out, had taken it to private messages instead. In six months they still hadn’t settled the dispute, but somehow managed to form something akin to a friendship.

Exchanging personal info was, they had silently agreed, a complete No. From the way he spoke (or rather typed), she guessed he wasn’t far off her age, but besides that only knew him by his skull icon. In turn, he only knew her by her vinyl icon and the choice to go by her middle name online. It was an admittedly dodgy setup – he could be anyone, could be capable of anything – but Lucy had grown accustomed to his sarcastic commentary and brashness, and would be hesitant to let it go.

She’d told Holly about him after being caught texting on the job one too many times.

“Yeah,” she said, tucking her phone back into her pocket. “Being his usual self.”

“No surprise there. But hey, I need your help prepping for the lunch rush. How about you clear Moustache’s table – which, may I point out, is conveniently near the corner – and then come join me in the back. Alright?”

Lucy followed her pointed, neatly manicured finger. Moustache man was gone and Holly was right, his table was close enough to Lockwood’s that clearing it would give her a second shot at conversation. She made a mental note to buy Hol a slice of carrot cake after their shift, and beelined to the table adorned with empty cups and plates.

From here, she could pick up on snatches of their conversation. It all seemed to be business stuff, and it gave her the impression that Lockwood and this George worked together, but their senses of dress were so starkly different that there was no way it was possible. A suit and tie and a graphic tee didn’t belong in the same office.

She stacked the dishes. Wiped the table. Realised she had absolutely no clue what she could talk about. If her hands were free she would have instinctively asked Skull, despite knowing he’d provide a stupid answer.

“Can we help you?” George said over Lockwood’s shoulder.

Lucy blinked.

Shit. She’d been staring again.

She could practically see the taunting messages Skull would send.

“Er,” she said eloquently. “Sorry. Was just wondering if you two needed anything? Cutlery? Sugar?”

Lucy worked hard to not drop the dishes in her hands when Lockwood turned around with a gleaming smile. “Oh, no, thank you. But – do you need any help with that? That all seems quite heavy.”

Moustache man tended to order multiple things requiring multiple plates and a variety of cutlery, and today was no exception. Yes, it was heavy, however no amount of silly infatuation was going to get Lucy to admit it.

She shook her head. “I’m fine, thank you. Could do this in my sleep.”

Lockwood continued to smile. It looked effortless. “Impressive. I’m sure you could take my order asleep, too.”

“Oh, any trained monkey could do that.”

“I ought to start changing my routine, if I’m that known for ordering the same thing every day.”

“It’s like you want me to mess up. No matter what you ask for, I’ll be sliding that Earl Grey and ginger biscuit over to you. It’s just muscle memory.”

“It could be fun to test you,” he said, eyebrows raising. “Up for a challenge?”

“A challenge? Pressing some new buttons and putting slightly different things into a cup? You underestimate me.”

“My apologies—” Here Lockwood squinted and leant forward ever so slightly. It took Lucy a second to realise he was checking her name tag. “—Lucy. I never meant to insult your barista expertise.”

“That’s more like it, Lockwood.”

“Feisty, this one,” George mused from behind his laptop.

“Lucy!” came Holly’s voice from the back. Lucy jolted and only just kept her grip on the plates. Awkwardly, she flashed a smile at the two boys and scurried back to the safety of being behind the counter.

With the dirty dishes deposited in the sink and officially Future Lucy’s problem, she followed the sound of Holly’s voice into the back, but made sure to check her phone along the way.

[Skull] god, hes bloody gone and done you in, hasnt he [Skull] i can see the headlines now: SAD LITTLE BARISTA MURDERED IN COLD BLOOD AT CAFE BY BLOKE WITH FREAKISHLY LONG LEGS AND A SHIT TASTE IN TEA

[Joan] I’m still alive. you’re very dramatic [Joan] I can’t always be on my phone, I surprisingly have things to do at work

[Skull] how dare u prioritise money over me, ur dearest most precious acquaintance [Skull] so he didnt kill u. [Skull] u definitely chickened out

[Joan] as a matter of fact, I didn’t!

[Skull] bullshit

[Joan] had almost a whole conversation, actually. proud?

[Skull] gobsmacked. [Skull] are u sure u didn’t get kidnapped and replaced by a clone with more confidence + better social skills

[Joan] har har. [Joan] talk later. we’re about to get busy again.

[Skull] you can store me in ur pocket all u like but i refuse to be silenced

Lucy turned on silent mode and slid her phone into her back pocket. Skull could wait. She had a lunch rush to prepare for, but the thrill of finally properly talking to Lockwood was enough to keep a smile on her face the whole way through it.

#lockwood and co #lockwood & co fic #lucy carlyle #the skull #anthony lockwood #skullyle #...sort of #czenzo.fic

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canonmisogynyvictimstournament · 8 months

Text

PROPAGANDA

KATARA (AVATAR THE LAST AIRBENDER)

1.) Katara was always shoved aside by both the narrative and the protagonist of AtLA. Despite her powerful arc, the creators always treated her as just the girl who the guy gets as a prize for saving the world. Her friends always relied on her for everything, from emotional support (that she felt she had to give) to menial tasks like cooking and cleaning and sewing (that no-one helped her out with). Her canonical boyfriend forced a kiss on her TWICE, and this was never really brought up or discussed (when she tried to discuss the first one, he forced the second one on her). She never got apologised to, and was constantly undervalued, treated badly, and her emotions were sidelined (she basically got told she was overreacting for wanting to pursue justice for her mother's murder). So yes, I do in fact think that Katara was a victim of misogyny. Also she wasn't allowed to learn to fight because she was a girl, even though she NEEDED to, and this only changed when the teacher found out that she was his old girlfriend's granddaughter.

None of this even touches on the sh*t that she was forced through in the sequel series. Good grief, I'm not even going to get started on that.

2.) Despite being the younger of two siblings, after her mom died she was forced to assume the role of caretaker in her family despite being a whole LITERAL CHILD to the point that her older brother IN CANON can only picture her face when he thinks of their MOTHER. She was always seen doing chores in the background that no other character ever helped her with because of her place as the "team mom" despite being LITERALLY fourteen. Not to mention how the sequel series ripped all of her personality and accomplishments from her to have her stay home w the children and let her husband neglect them in ways she NEVER would have actually stood for in the og series. Where all the other characters have statues and cities and laws and bending skills named after them they make her sit and twiddle her thumbs so that she can be the avatar's perfect uncomplaining wife and silently fade into the background

3.) so some things I wanna say here might actually be controversial, because I feel like the fans actually bought into/accepted the stuff I'm talking about uncritically. or maybe it's not that deep. but anyway

katara initially can be pretty sensible - her and sokka both. they're the kids of the chief, and neither of their parents are around, so it's obvious they both feel a lot of responsibility.

but still, early on, she's rebellious, she seeks fun and adventure, she cracks jokes. she goes penguin sledding with aang, who reminds her that she is in fact a kid. she steals from pirates then jokes about it when sokka scolds her.

as the show goes on, she gets more stern, straightlaced, "motherly", and has less of a sense of humour. she's still a badass but there are jokes about how she isn't fun or funny, or how she's a stick in the mud, to the point where I feel like the audience seems to have actually bought into it too. then the ember island players episode makes out like she's super preachy and cries a lot - yes obviously I know that this is a joke episode, but the show clearly is trying to parody itself with a basis on characters actual qualities, otherwise why would they bother? and the other characters act like they secretly think it's accurate too. since WHEN?

then sokka who starts out taking charge and resisting kataras schemes, becomes the light-hearted, fun, funny one. like yes he was always sarcastic and wisecracking, but at some point it feels like the show decided that they needed to have a sokka funny, katara unfunny dichotomy. even tho sokka isn't fuckin funny, everyone groans at his jokes.

if katara doesnt make jokes like the show seems to imply, then that means what she does when she's sarcastic or whatever isn't a joke, it's something else. like idk, bitchiness, I guess.

EVE (PARADISE LOST)

1.) I recognise how insane this submission is because this was written in 1667 and so attitudes towards women were obviously very different. But misogyny has always existed, no matter the time period, and so I think it's fair to pick up on it. Although Milton somewhat avoids painting Eve as the wicked seductress, she is nevertheless presented as inherently inferior to Adam - her 'virtue' and 'passion' are supposed to be an equal counterpart to Adam's intellect but Milton's clear resentment of Eve shines through. She is vain from the beginning - enamoured with her own reflection until she meets Adam. She is Adam's subordinate and readily accepts her place in the hierarchy below him, until she meets Satan. Women seeking power and knowledge is therefore inextricably tied to the fall of mankind. Her attempt for some kind of independence away from Adam (going to tend the garden away from him) is also presented as the primary reason she succumbed to Satan because Adam is needed to protect her. Eve (the mother of all women) therefore creates the assumption that women are weak and easily misled away from men. The description of her eating the apple is very sexual - perhaps reflecting the anxieties of men at the time of being cuckolded and therefore dishonoured by their wives. She is the ultimate disobedient, dangerous wife. Her reason for sharing the forbidden knowledge with Adam, rather than keeping it for herself, is because she is worried she will face the wrath of God and be replaced with another Eve. So it is her jealousy that brings them both down. (It is all a lot more complicated than this so Eng lit people don't kill me) but yeah poor Eve.

#polls #round 1 #week 2 #new

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thekingofwinterblog · 4 months

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Thoughts on some future post canon scenario for the Soul Eater anime?

If i were to write a followup to the Anime, i would focus on 2 overarching conflicts, and use them as backdrops for the main cast's further development.

Those two conflicts would be the age old conflcit between death's side and the witches, and how recent developments would naturally lead to escalation, while the other conflict i would gice focus is the rise of a new kishin, one who's madness was not fear, as we have explored that as far as it can go.

The witches are the secondary conflict of soul eater, but we are never given focus on it as two sides, just individual witches like medusa and her sisters.

You can easily change that however, and use the fact the two sides did not make peace in the anime for a sequel story.

Especially because something has changed. Something that would lohically be the next step in escalation.

The death of Kishin Asura proved that not only could the great old ones be defeated... It also showed how. By hitting them with an embodiment of their opposite.

That completely changes the ballgame when the next shinigami rises to take his father's place, because following the death of asura, the witches under mabaa would probably be very, very interested in doing to him, what Maka did to Asura.

I would have them try to turn this concept into an art, using magical science and understanding into discovering the exact in-universe mechanics behind this, and how to sinplify the process... Or maybe even use it as the basis for successfully taking control over a great old one that witches through both the anime and manga kept trying to do with Asura.

Excalibur has always been a true joke character... But imagine his power under the control of an antagonistic witch.

That would be both terrifying... And also keeping in theme with what Asura said at the end.

Even if Maka defeated him, some new, great evil would arise. A second, an heir, a successor, whatever, someone would rise to fill his void.

That was a risk Maka understood and accepted as she crushed Asura. She just did not care, because she refused to live her life in fear. If it did, she would handle it when the day came.

It also would ahow that Shinigami wasnt exagerating when he described the conflict between witches and his side as one of eternal esxalation.

Of course, this new stage of an age old conflict, and the potential rise of a new great Kishin would mainly be there to serve as the backdrop for our main cast. I would also very distinctly be taking this story in a more romantic development for all of them, exporing the fact that as the series ended, any followup would certainly have them be young adults.

Obviously kid's story would be about actually having taken his father's place, and actually having to continue his father's conflicts... As well as how Patty and Liz would fit into it. Has he considered the fact that just like his father he would outlive every single one of his friends and comrades? How would he react to that? We know how his father reacted to fear... He ripped it out and made Asura. But Kid is a new shinigami, that will have to find his own way.

As for the sisters, what do they want? Are they content to live as Kid's guns until the day they die? And if so, will that be as friends, or do they want aomething more out of it?

Tsubaki and Black star would be very similar to the manga journey, but with the cqveat that Black Star in this universe did not kill Mizune... Im not exactly sure how i would have his overall journey change as a result, but i feel that this moment was a truly decisive one in his development, so having him take a different route should have consequences.

As for Tsubaki, i'll be real, out of all the weapons she is by far the one that NEEDED to take her relationship with her weapon to the next level if you want her to actually develop as a character, but she just doesnt have many other routes to take... And it's not as if her wanting to take the next step with Black Star is a bad next step for her.

And finally we have Maka, Soul and Crona.

Now there are two sides of these i would explore. The romance, and the non romance.

The non-romance part is exploring their family lives. Medusa isn't dead for one, so that is something that needs to be adressed, but it's hardly the only one.

Soul and Maka both have families they love, but have run away from for various reasons, and in different ways. With Maka i would have her and Crona talk about it, and have Maka begin to come to terms with the fact that her mother abandoned her... Leading to them tracking her down. Wheter or she comes back home with them or not, the main focus would be closure.

Maka and her mother reaffirming their love for each other, while also not sweeping the very real faults of mrs albarn and how she handled her divorce under the rug. Maybe with maka having the realisation that she simply does not understand her mother, or that her mother simply is not capable or doing what she did, and taking another leap of faith like she did after Crona betrayed her.

As for Soul I would absolutely have him having to interact with his family(after he becomes a death scythe) again, but exploring their issues from a different angle, namely that for all his feelings of inaduqasies, his family never really regarded him as lesser in any way, and quite on the contrary, are really proud of him for becoming a death scythe.

Having to confront the fact that everything you saw wrong with the world is a bitter pill to swallow... But absolutely great for a character arc. It's mundane, but also a great window into Soul's character.

Now with that in mind, i would also use Soul's development for something else.

Namely having his newfound courage to confront things he doesnt like or feel confident aboyt head on lead to conflict, as he now is willing to confront a reality staring him in the face head on.

That conflict being Maka and Crona.

Now it's pretty clear in both the Manga and the anime that soul does have feelings for Maka, with his genderbent self(which represents his ideal idea for a partner) in particular looking very similar to a maka who let her hair grow long...

But that is not the case for Maka, who's ideal partner is a spindly beanpole, with short hair, with an andragonous looking boy that could easily be labled as either gender.

Now while the main cast took this ideal sense to play up what they see as no changes, what this "Ideal" partner represents is actually pretty obvious.

Namely how Crona looked before leaving the school, and by extension going through puberty.

In regards to how i would use this for this sequen to the anime, i would have Soul having to confront the fact the girl he likes in love with someone else... One of his own friends, who the anime seems to suggest moved in with him and maka after the Kishin's defeat.

One who, lets be frank, returns ALL of Maka's feelings.

There is SO much much juicy potential for great character developments and moments especially within the context that there is a very real war going on around all of them, where Maka and Soul need to be at their very best.

Not to mention that this would probably be one topic that would bring out genuine passion in the introverted Crona, who's development with Maka being the most important thing In Crona's life, having the reality that Crona is not the only person who loves Maka could be a very real wakeup that leads to further development.

And of course there is Maka in the middle of it all, where you cpuld handle it from several different angles. She could be the sane man, who is trying to keep their team focused on the mission, who is completely blindsided that Crona and Maka choose NOW of all times to have this discussion... Or you could have her be completely blindsided by the fact that Soul has feelings for her, and chooses to bare them to her before a romantic relationship with Crona(who she likes) has actually taken hold.

There are a lot of ways to handle it, and the aftermath, and subsequent reconnection as the partners have to come to terms with it, and decide where they fo from here. Its rife for great drama, and rooted in the respective character flaws and developments... As opposed to Manga Maka's sudden and out of nowhere fear she is inaduquate compared to soul.

Good character development and drama is built on what is already there, not inventing things whole cloth.

As for the next Kishin, wheter they be an existing character twisted to the path like Crona, or an entierly new character, i would probably play up the fact that the Witches wants to control them, while Death's faction wants to exterminate them... But in the end, it's a friendship from either, or both sides that in the end convinces the Kishin to do what neither Asura or Manga Crona did.

Give up on the power of their own free will, in favor of their bonds with other people, rather than embrace a lonely existence as the strongest thing alive.

Im not sure if i would completely end the conflict between witches and Death like the manga did, but i would definitly lay the groundworks for some kind of lasting peace at the end of season 2, where the two sides are just... TIRED of endless war, back and forths, retalitions and counterstrikes.

I think an uncertain future, but still one where the protagonists choose to give this peace between them a try, similar to the end of the original anime after Asura's defeat, would probably work best.

#soul eater anime #meta #questions and answers #anime continuation #season 2 #maka albarn #maka's mother #soul eater evans #crona gorgon #death the kid #liz thompson #patty thompson #black star #tsubaki nakatsukasa #kishin asura #soul eater #question and answer

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